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. 2021 Oct 28;34(1):98–109. doi: 10.1080/08995605.2021.1973793

Basic needs satisfaction in a military learning environment: An exploratory study

Anouk Lepinoy a,✉, Salvatore Lo Bue a, Ruben Vanderlinde b
PMCID: PMC10013457  PMID: 38536337

ABSTRACT

Military academies request initiatives for better pedagogy to keep their cadets motivated and successful. Following the self-determination theory, one could promote autonomous motivation by fulfilling the three basic psychological needs of students: the need for autonomy, relatedness and competence. In this qualitative research, we investigated which motivational critical events go together with a perception of high or low autonomy, relatedness and competence. To this end, we organized four focus groups with participants from the two faculties of the Royal Military Academy of Belgium (RMA): Social and Military Sciences (SMS) and Engineering (ENG). Using the critical incident method, we searched for the facilitating and inhibiting events with regard to motivation within the learning environment. Thereafter, we used the constant comparison method as an analysis technique to link the critical events to one of the three basic needs. We found that a perception of high relatedness was the most effective in motivating SMS cadets, while the perception of high competence was the most effective in motivating ENG cadets. For both the SMS and ENG cadets, a lack of autonomy was demotivating. This study provides a model that suggests in which way context characteristics within a (military) learning environment meets students’ basic psychological needs and how it is facilitating or inhibiting motivation in turn.

KEYWORDS: Motivation, basic needs, learning environment, military academies

What is the public significance of this article?— The present study suggests a mediating role of basic needs satisfaction between the learning environment and students’ motivation. On that premise, determining events that facilitate and inhibit motivation in the learning environment can help to optimize educational practices to set up interventions.

Research context

A military academy is an atypical higher-education environment. Although military academies all over the world take different names (academy, college, university), all of them pursue the same mission: developing effective and competent military officers. Many military universities consist of a same curriculum structure: a social sciences curriculum and an engineering curriculum. At all, a military university offers only one curriculum.

New cadets face the same challenges and obstacles as other higher-education students, but they must also adapt to military life (Kelly, Matthews, & Bartone, 2014). Cadets must perform to a high academic standard (Buch, Säfvenbom, & Boe, 2015; Kelly et al., 2014) and at the same time, distribute judiciously their time and efforts between the academic education, the military and physical training and the character development. Consequently, succeeding in a military academy requires high levels of motivation (Buch et al., 2015). Hence, military academies have every interest in caring for the cadets’ motivation to optimize the education output – academic achievement, military mastery, athletic performance and leadership development – and minimize dropouts.

Arnold (2014) states that motivation is the link between what drives people to do something, how much effort they put into doing something and how long they continue to do it. Scholars consider motivation in various ways: as a cause (e.g. Fazel & Ahmadi, 2011; Hauser, 2014; Venkatesan, Varghese, & Ananthanarayanan, 2009), as a result (Hardré, Crowson, Debacker, & White, 2007; Jaakkola, 2004; Neumeister & Finch, 2006) or as a mediating variable between causes and results (Fernandez, 2008; Saltson & Nsiah, 2015; Syafii, Thoyib, & Nimran, 2015). In the educational context, motivation can be the cause of student success or the outcome of the educational conditions (Ryan & Patrick, 2001). In this study, we consider motivation as a result of the match between personal needs and the learning environment.

In 1985, Deci and Ryan contributed to the field of motivation theory by making a distinction between two types of motivation regulation, i.e. controlled motivation and autonomous motivation. Controlled motivation is determined on the one hand by external factors (for example, to avoid punishment or to receive a reward) and on the other hand by internal pressure (for example, to avoid guilt, shame or fear or to strengthen ego). Autonomous motivation can exist when there is a personal purpose (for example, one identifies himself with the value, the personal importance of a given behavior), when the behavior is in line with the personal values (for example, the behavior is part of who one is) or when the person does something because he/she likes to do it.

The basic needs theory (Ryan, 1995) proposes three fundamental human needs: the need for autonomy, the need for relatedness and the need for competence. When all three needs are met, they ensure optimal functioning of individuals in different areas of life (Niemiec & Ryan, 2009; Reeve, 2005; Van den Broeck, Ferris, Chang, & Rosen, 2016).

Autonomy stands for the need of an individual to make his/her own choices. This concerns a subjective experience of psychological freedom and choice. Relatedness is the need to connect to others and to belong to a community, as well as to feel that significant others care about you. The sense of competence is a sense of effectiveness and mastery, so the need for competence is the need to interact effectively with the environment (Deci & Ryan, 2000; White, 1959).

In civilian higher-education settings, research shows that psychological needs satisfaction influences motivational regulations (Chen, 2014; Schneider & Kwan, 2013; Tessier, Sarrazin, & Ntoumanis, 2010) and academic achievements (Carreira, 2012; Dettweiler, Lauterbach, Becker, & Simon, 2017; Ng, Liu, & Wang, 2016). A lack of connection between the school and the personal needs and interests of students can lead to a motivation problem among students (Govaerts, Kyndt, Dochy, & Baert, 2011; Schuit, de Vrieze, & Sleegers, 2011; Vansteenkiste, Sierens, Soenens, & Lens, 2007). This could possibly lead to early school leaving, under-utilization of skills or non-acquisition of competences (e.g. Schuit et al., 2011; Vansteenkiste et al., 2007). Therefore, we posit that the learning environment plays a major role in the satisfaction of basic needs.

The learning environment is one of the most important factors of learning that affects motivation to learn (Wang, Haertel, & Walberg, 1990). Moos (1974, 2002) describes the learning environment as a psychosocial environment with three dimensions: the relationship dimension, the growth dimension and the change dimension. The relationship dimension defines the quality of personal relationships – between student and teacher and between students – and concerns aspects such as personal engagement, cohesion, mutual support and cooperation between people in a social environment. The growth dimension includes the way in which the environment encourages personal development and the way tasks are oriented. The change dimension concerns the clarity of expectations and rules, differentiation between lessons, etc.

Motivation can also be the result of interactions with a certain context. According to Baeten, Kyndt, Struyven, and Dochy (2010), stimulating factors can be determined based on the context in which the student learns, on the perceptions of the student and on the characteristics of the student himself. Context features include, for example, feedback, evaluation, teaching method, etc. The student’s perception includes issues such as perceived workload and perceived clarity of objectives. The student’s characteristics are, for example, age, gender, intelligence, motivation, etc. In this research, context features and student’s perception have an impact on student’s motivation, which is a student characteristic.

An autonomy-supporting climate will favor the satisfaction of basic needs by encouraging the process of internalization and intrinsic motivation (Niemiec & Ryan, 2009). In such a climate, teachers are more empathetic and try to recognize possible difficulties (Leroy, 2009). Students where teachers support autonomy show a high degree of self-determination (Deci, Nezlek, & Sheinman, 1981), better academic performance (Black & Deci, 2000; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Vallerand, 1997) a higher sense of skill (Deci, Schwartz, Sheinman, & Ryan, 1981) and a meaningful rationale (Chirkov & Ryan, 2001; Reeve, 2002). However, Nguyen states (2008) that the motivation of students may change. This means that even students who do not want to learn can change their minds when they experience a stimulating environment that captures their attention.

In the civilian educational context, some studies have investigated the relationship between the learning environment and the satisfaction of basic needs. For instance, Grolnick and Ryan (1987) studied how fostering autonomy supports learning outcomes by creating a facilitating environment. Urdan and Schoenfelder (2006) studied the influence of classroom effects on motivation and competence beliefs. Niemiec and Ryan (2009) studied autonomy, competence and relatedness in the classroom and their impact on motivation. Gibbons (2014) studied relatedness-supportive learning environment.

Despite the tough challenges cadets face in military academies and the interest of military academies to achieve the best possible education of future leaders, research on cadets’ motivation regulation is scarce. Some studies have addressed grit at the United States Military Academy of West Point (e.g. Buller, 2012; Kelly et al., 2014; Maddi, Matthews, Kelly, Villarreal, & White, 2012), academic self-efficacy at the Norwegian Military Academy (e.g. Boe, Säfvenbom, Johansen, & Buch, 2018; Buch et al., 2015; Fosse, Buch, Säfvenbom, & Martinussen, 2015), retention motivations of Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets at United States Military Academy, West Point (Ngaruiya, Velez, Clerkin, & Taylor, 2014), cadet motivation and learning at United States Military Academy, West Point (Nguyen, 2008). Surprisingly, nobody has looked yet into cadets’ experiences and perceptions about their academies and in the potential link between motivation, basic needs satisfaction, and the learning environment. Hence, the central question of this study is: “In what way does the learning environment impact on cadets’ ‘motivation?” Cadets face various challenges that require high levels of motivation (academic, military, physical, personal), therefore we focused on academic motivation in this study. We addressed our research question by dint of a qualitative approach based on focus groups of cadets of the Royal Military Academy of Belgium. In particular, we explored with them their subjective experiences and perception of facilitating and inhibiting events on motivation. Afterward, we used the critical analysis technique (CIT; Flanagan, 1954) to relate these facilitating and inhibiting events to one of the three basic needs. Our aim was to develop a model of motivation in military academies, in order to foster research in this field and help policy making.

Method

We used the critical incident technique (CIT; Flanagan, 1954) to analyze in depth facilitating and inhibiting events that influence motivation within a military academic learning environment. CIT is a widely used method to map people’s experiences in a systematic way (Flanagan, 1954). Questioned about everyday events, participants tell about their implicit knowledge, without falling into socially desirable or theoretically formed answers (Zemke & Kramlinger, 1991). Butterfield, Maglio, Borgen, and Amundson (2009) see the specificity of the target group as a condition for applying the CIT. The CIT is used for example, to detect facilitating and obstructing factors, to collect functional or behavioral descriptions of events or problems, to highlight successes and failures, and finally to determine characteristics that are crucial for important aspects of an activity or an event (Flanagan, 1954). By discussing and organizing example situations with the participants, this method works toward a practical overview of all individual knowledge, resulting into new knowledge created through the interaction. This method allows researchers to formulate practical recommendations to the professional field.

Participants

At the time of the data collection, 422 cadets studied at the Royal Military Academy of Belgium. The cadets followed the social and military sciences curriculum (SMS) (n = 321) or the polytechnics one (ENG) (n = 101), were in the bachelor year (i.e. college) (n = 261) or in their master year (i.e. university) (n = 161), French speaking (n = 201) or Dutch speaking (n = 221) and male (n = 351) or female (n = 71). Among this population, 376 had participated in an earlier quantitative research on motivation. Out of those 376, we selected a simple random sample of 40 cadets with a digital random number generator. We organized four focus groups of ten students, with two people per year of study (5 promotions per faculty), per faculty (SMS and ENG) and per language (French speaking and Dutch speaking). This means one group contained people from different study years, but study at the same faculty and spoke the same language. The choice of this partition was two-fold. On the one hand, the academic curriculum and the learning environment are quite different in the two faculties (Skatova & Ferguson, 2014) and on the other hand, the language aspect as a cultural difference is a special feature of the RMA (Kuśnierz, Rogowska, & Pavlova, 2020).

Procedure

We invited participants to report behaviors or events that had a positive influence (facilitating) or a negative influence (inhibiting) on their academic motivation. The same researcher, fluent in both Dutch and French, led all the focus groups in both languages. The focus groups took place in the second semester of the academic year (February to June). Because of the heavy-loaded program of the students, the duration of the focus groups was limited to two hours. After a general introduction, the researcher addressed the two following central questions

  • Give an example of a behavior or an event that motivates you within academic education (facilitating)?

  • Give an example of a behavior or an event that demotivates you within academic education (inhibiting)?

We used the words “a behavior or an event” on purpose to avoid the possible negative and dramatic connotation of an incident.

The focus groups followed the CIT three phases (Dekker et al., 2000). In phase 1, each participant received a sheet of paper and a pen and wrote down an example of a behavior or event that had to do with the central questions. In phase 2, we asked the participants to read out one of their behaviors or events to the other participants in the focus group. We then asked the other participants if they had a related example and if they wanted to read it out. When there were no more related behaviors or events reported, we invited the participants to find an appropriate label to describe the behavior or event in one or two words. In phase 3, when participants had agreed on a common appropriate label, they classified the labels according to their effectiveness, i.e. the degree of success or influence in achieving motivation or demotivation respectively.

Analysis

The focus groups were recorded and the researcher completely typed out the recordings. The nature of our approach involved mentioning persons (e.g. teachers, military staff, cadets), so while typing out the conversations, we preserved the anonymity of the mentioned personnel as much as possible. We only mentioned departments when this was necessary to describe and understand the situation. When writing out the content of the focus groups, we omitted all hesitations and repetitions within a sentence to facilitate readability.

Central in a qualitative research analysis is the systematic interpretation of the studied phenomenon, but as subjectivity and reflexivity are inherent features of qualitative studies (Plochg & Van Zwieten, 2007), we have chosen to use a multi-assessors approach. Four assessors analyzed independently how quotes could be linked to a basic need from the basic needs theory (Ryan, 1995). We chose Subject Matter Experts – one Dutch Msc Psychology and one Dutch MSc Pedagogical Sciences and two French Msc Psychology – all working at the military academy because of their insight into the psychological and pedagogical concepts and because they all had a good knowledge about the functioning at the military academy to ensure a same framework of reference (Hyde, Yardley, Lefroy, Gay, & McKinley, 2020). The assessors function independently (Posner, Sampson, Caplan, Ward, & Cheney, 1990). To ensure that each assessor gave the same meaning to the basic needs, we provided an instruction sheet with additional information about the basic needs and used method to minimize theoretical interpretation (Hyde et al., 2020). The four assessor used the same assessment tool to minimize interpretation in the evaluation for the quotes. After the independent analyses, the researcher searched similarities of categorization between herself and the two different assessors. As three assessors, the researcher herself and two other assessors, were involved according to the language, we calculated the kappa statistics (Arora, Johnson, Lovinger, Humphrey, & Meltzer, 2005). Cohen’s Kappa represents the degree of agreement between different assessors and is suitable for qualitative scoring (Cohen, 1960). In our study, the kappa score was between 0.32 and 0.65, which means that the interrater reliability was moderate to good (according to the criteria in Sim & Wright, 2005). Therefore, we used the basic need most frequently linked as categorization of labels. To produce our model we linked the common language labels to scholar terms, which the researchers found by literature research with their relationship to the basic needs.

Results

In this section, we present the results separately according to the faculty. Although they may refer to similar concepts, labels may differ between SMS and ENG, because participants produced them in separate focus groups. For this reason, we propose a scholar term referring to the label into brackets. We report first the behavior and events having a positive influence on academic motivation (in order of decreasing effectiveness to achieve motivation) and then behaviors and events having a negative influence on academic motivation (in order of decreasing effectiveness to achieve demotivation). The Supplemental Material (Tables 1–4) provides an organized view of labels, associated basic psychological need and examples of illustrative quotes. Finally, we modeled the relationships between variables out of the learning environment, basic psychological needs and motivation.

Social and military sciences students

SMS students produced six labels for behavior and events that have a positive influence on the academic motivation. We found the teacher’s interest in their students [teacher engagement] as most effective in achieving motivation. In addition, the existence of didactic material (handbooks, key questions and key solutions, etc.) [instrumental support],a feeling of shame [threat to the ego] when performing poorly and cohesion [social support] among students are effective in achieving motivation. The assessors linked the basic need relatedness as categorization for these four labels. Subsequently, we found link with the job [job match], i.e. the match between the content of the courses and their future job and the evaluation [assessment] effective in achieving motivation. The assessors linked the basic need competence as categorization of those two labels.

The SMS participants applied seven labels for events that have a negative influence on the academic motivation. The military staff [supervisor], who is responsible for the military training and character development of the cadets, is most effective in installing demotivation for the academic education, because the cadets sometimes feel treated like children, followed by a lack of autonomy [lack of agency] and lack of physical fitness [lack of physical fitness]. These three labels were associated with the need of autonomy. Courses [course content] that do not increase their sense of competence, evaluation of academic performances [assessment] and poor pedagogy [poor teaching competence] are also effective in achieving demotivation. The assessors linked the basic need competence as categorization of those three labels. Subsequently, we found that courses with insufficient didactic material [poor teacher engagement], poor pedagogy [poor teacher engagement] and a feeling of injustice [incongruence] have a negative influence on the academic motivation. The assessors linked the basic need relatedness as categorization to those three labels.

Engineering students

The focus groups among ENG students produced eight labels for events that have a positive influence on the academic motivation. First, assurance future, which means an individual’s subjective perception of his or her capacity to perform in a given setting or to attain desired results [academic self-efficacy], is most effective in achieving motivation. Followed by the practical aspects of their education [action learning], courses with a link with the future job or content [job match], the evaluation of academic performances [assessment], which responds to their need of competence. Cohesion [social support], availability of academic material [instrumental support], the pedagogy as teaching style [poor teacher engagement] and the feeling of pride [reinforcement of the ego] have a positive influence on the academic motivation. The assessors linked the basic need relatedness as categorization of those four labels.

Eight labels applied for events that have a negative impact on the academic motivation, with regard to the ENG students. First, we found a lack of or poor communication [poor information support] that is associated with their need of relatedness, followed by poorly performing teachers [poor teaching competences], insufficient academic material [poor instrumental support] and the impact of the military staff [supervisor] on the academic education. Bad or poor academic planning [poor information support] that limit their academic performance is also most effective to install demotivation and is associated with a lack of autonomy, as well a lack of free time [lack of agency] and the limitations installed by a recent change in the ENG curriculum [lack of agency]. Incorrect evaluations or incoherence between their input and output [assessment] that do not reflect their competence is associated with their need of competence.

A possible explanation as to why SMS and ENG produce different events is that students choose a university degree in function of four reasons: career, interest, helping others and loafing (as an easy option to get into higher education) (Skatova & Ferguson, 2014). They found that the choice for engineering curriculum was associated with career and low interest in the degree, while the choice of humanities drives by interest and low concern about their future career (mixed result). When we find a difference in the reasons students choose a particular faculty, we may also find a difference in motivation and the way to meet their basic needs. According to Skatova and Ferguson (2014) career and loafing represents the extrinsic dimension, while helping and interest represents the intrinsic dimension. Within these four reasons to choose a curriculum, we can make a link to the basic needs. We link career to competence, helping others to relatedness.

Discussion

This study focused on the critical events with their relationship to basic needs that increase or decrease the motivation of cadets in a military academy.

In our sample from the RMA, we found that SMS cadets are motivated in the first place by a perception of high relatedness and secondly by a perception of high competence. We found the opposite among ENG cadets (first, high competence; secondly, high relatedness). Strikingly, cadets of both faculties do not indicate motivating critical events with regard to autonomy. For cadets of both faculties, a perception of low relatedness is demotivating. For SMS cadets this is secondly followed by a perception of low competence and thirdly by a perception of low autonomy. For ENG cadets we found the opposite, in the 2nd place by a perception of low autonomy and in 3rd place by a perception of low competence. In the following section, we discuss the findings related to each basic need.

Autonomy

In our sample, assessment is associated indirectly to autonomy. Good grades lead to rewards (e.g. free study, have dinner outside the military academy, practicing more sport, etc.). Too often teachers use external controls, close supervision and evaluations, which go along with a reward, a punishment or a negative reinforcement to ensure learning takes place. Such practices install external pressure on students instead of facilitating student’s inherent interest in learning (Niemiec & Ryan, 2009). The idea is that positive feedback (reward) increases intrinsic motivation and negative feedback reduces intrinsic motivation. By using rewards, students are more motivated to complete their education (Holter & Bruinsma, 2010) and students have a sense of agency over their own learning (Iliev, Jovanovski, & Dojcinovski, 2019).

According to the cadets in our sample, there is an inconsistent relationship between academic aptitudes on the one hand, and military aptitudes and personality development on the other hand (by example weak academic result lead to less sport opportunities), which can lead to a feeling of incongruence (i.e. one’s subjective evaluation of a situation is at odds with reality). Additionally, the cadets have the perception that the academic aptitudes get the upper hand on the military aptitudes and the personal development. Students are motivated to perform well when they believe their teachers care for their personal needs, as well as academic needs (Nguyen, 2008).

A lack of feeling of agency follows a schedule imposed by the military staff who does not consider their academic agenda or does not communicate in advance. Cadets indicate that the military calendar gets priority on the academic calendar. This makes it difficult for cadets to plan their study time and has a negative impact on their leisure time. It is also important that cadets know what the school is aiming for, what they should be able to know after the semester or year and so they can tailor their learning activities accordingly. When activities are communicated in advance, the student can be the owner of his or her agenda, so that he/she can choose when he/she plans their study time, but also their leisure time. Academies want their students to have more responsibility for their learning, so students need more influence on their learning process (Lew & Schmidt, 2011; Scharle, Szabó, & Ur, 2000; Van Loon, 2019).

Relatedness

A perception of high relatedness is motivating the cadets. The availability of didactic material plays the most important role here. It is a cue for the cadets that the teacher is interested in his/her students and that he/she guide them in acquiring knowledge. It reflects teacher engagement (Federici & Skaalvik, 2014). Cadets consider the absence of appropriate didactic material as demotivating. The cadet does not feel appreciated in that case. Previous research has shown that a good relationship with the teacher and instrumental support contribute to a higher sense of well-being (Suldo et al., 2009), intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and help seeking behavior (Federici & Skaalvik, 2014). We can call this academic integration. Academic integration means that a student can participate in a broad sense in the learning environment and feels connected to the curriculum and the institution (Education Council,). Davidson, Beck, and Milligan (2009) translate this into the belief that teachers are concerned about the intellectual growth of their students at school, that students can participate in discussions during the lecture and that there is a relationship between the curriculum and the future. According to Kember (1989), academic integration also exerts an influence on the intrinsic motivation of students. When students feel that the teacher believes in them and is concerned about their results, they gain more confidence and become more motivated (Thomas, 2002).

The recognition of the high academic level of studies by the teachers inside and outside the academy gives the cadets the impression that the teacher is involved with his cadets. We consider this as another signal of teacher engagement. It is remarkable that cadets and the assessors associated this aspect with relatedness and not with competence, probably because it relates more to the relationship dimension then to the growth dimension (Moos, 1974, 2002). In the civilian educational context, this perception of high relatedness is associated with a feeling that the teacher likes, values, respects the student, and leads consequently to a higher intrinsic motivation (Niemiec & Ryan, 2009). Students are motivated to learn and perform well in the academy when they feel a sense of relatedness (Ryan & Patrick, 2001).

The fact that cadets feel they belong to their group (social support) also contributes to relatedness and to the motivation of the cadet. Research shows that students with low social integration drop out more often due to a lack of interactions and because they do not feel at home (Spady, 1971; Tinto, 1975).

Poor information support leads to a perception of low relatedness. In our sample, too little, unrealistic or incorrect information is being shared and the cadets’ wishes are not taken into account, for example in an exam planning. However, research shows that participation in decision-making contributes to a perception of higher relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 2000). By sharing information with their students, the teacher integrates the student within the academic framework.

Competence

Courses with professional relevance (i.e. job match) are very effective to foster motivation. Cadets want to learn those competences, as they will use them as future officers for example learn to negotiate. Cadets ask to organize the teaching in function of job match. This relates to the need for competence. A motivation problem can arise when there is a lack of agreement between the school and the individual interests of students (here the future position) (Nelis & van Sark, 2012).

Another aspect that contributes to the perceived competence is the evaluation aspect, which cadets see as a form of self-evaluation (i.e. assessment). Evaluation here becomes a feedback for the cadet to adjust his behavior. Research shows that the quality of evaluation is predictive for study performance (Bruinsma, 2004). This leads to entrepreneurial skills among students such as autonomous and problem solving thinking. People want to be able to show their capacity to perform, which you can relate to academic self-efficacy.

Confronted with a teacher perceived as not being competent (i.e. poor teaching competences), for example because he/she is not enthusiastic to teach in his/her field, does not provide didactic resources or because he/she provides conflicting information, has a demotivating effect. Such negative perceptions can have a predictive value for the student’s commitment (Lau & Roeser, 2002, 2008).

Strengths and limitations

Although this research provides additional insight into the needs of cadets in military academies, it has also a number of strengths and limitations that are important to consider to improve future research.

In qualitative research, the researcher has a central role because he is at the same time an observation tool and an analysis tool in the light of the research question (Plochg & Van Zwieten, 2007). It is possible that the identity of the researcher when leading the focus groups had an impact on data collection because she was part of the teaching staff, so the cadets may have filtered the critical incidents they reported. It is also possible that the effect of the researcher’s expectations plays a role in data collection (Clarke, Sproston, & Thomas, 2003). This effect occurs when the researcher influences the participants and the participants thereby deliver results that are in line with the research expectations. Body language, by example, affects this unconscious process. To remedy this shortcoming, we would recommend to let a researcher external to the institution lead the focus groups. In the analysis of the focus groups’ content, the reflexivity of the researcher was however mitigated by the use of different assessors. The use of different assessors with a common theoretical background and kappa statistics is not common in behavioral science research and is a strength of this research in particular. It ensures interrater reliability and that results are replicable. On top of that, we use a common assessment tool. Although further research can find different events, but the events found in the military learning environment will be in line with the linked basic needs and their impact on the relationship with autonomous motivation.

We would like to emphasize the importance of qualitative research in the social sciences. Our literature review highlighted that research on cadets’ motivation is scarce. The inductive approach we adopted helped us to shed light on this seldom studied phenomenon. Furthermore, qualitative approach gave a central place to the perception and experience of the participants. We are convinced that using focus group through a process of sharing and comparing information, resulted in in-depth insights on the relationships between the military learning environment variables, the satisfaction of basic needs, and motivation. Our study resulted in a model (Figure 1) suggesting a mediating effect of basic needs satisfaction between the learning environment and motivation. Future quantitative research could explore those relationships further.

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

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Research model suggesting a mediating effect of basic needs satisfaction between the learning environment and motivation.

Recommendations

With this study, we aimed at exploring the relationships between learning environmental conditions and basic needs satisfaction. If a military academy wants to offer education that meets the needs of the students, it has to integrate in the first place more autonomy because we found cadets do not indicate motivating critical events with regard to autonomy. We must take into account the age phase of our target group, the young adult (between the ages of 17 and 25), wherein the most important lines are outlined for their future (Stas, Serrien, & Van Menxel, 2008). During this period, freedom of choice and responsibilities are central (Arnett & Taber, 1994; D’Oosterlinck, Broekaert, & Vander Haeghen, 2006). High pedagogical control with the obliged study time is the most typical example that decrease the satisfaction of the need of autonomy of our participants. Every military academy wants autonomously motivated students, but imposes restrictions on autonomy at the same time. However, several studies show that autonomous motivation contributes to greater relatedness and commitment at school (Skinner, Connell, & Wellborn, 1990), leads to better results (Miserandino, 1996), prevents school dropout (Vallerand & Bissonnette, 1992), entails higher-quality learning behavior (Grolnick & Ryan, 1987) and more well-being (Sheldon & Kasser, 1995, 1998). Moreover, when improving autonomy at school, students also recognize and appreciate this greater level of autonomy in other people and probably they will give autonomy in their future role as military leader, after all, they have seen a good example (Nelis & van Sark, 2012). It is striking that in this research the military staff reduces autonomy when academic results are failing the expectations. This leads to interference between academic education and military training and therefore between academic and military assessments. This is comparable to the situation of a child of divorced parents raised within two families, and punished for something he/she did in the one family by the other family. Students encouraged to focus on the process of their learning will examine their own contribution to their learning process. Self-reflection upon errors or successes is a first step to develop agency (Lew & Schmidt, 2011; Scharle et al., 2000; Van Loon, 2019).

We recommend decoupling the academic education from the military training, and their respective assessments, as well as to question autonomy-restricting measures. Revising this autonomy aspect requires confidence in the cadets. Nguyen (2008) stated in his review research that motivated students attend class or study without a need for external regulation like reward or punishments.

According to Sluijsmans, Dochy, and Moerkerke (1998) and Somervell (1993), the use of self, peer and team evaluation can remove the barrier between students and teachers. Integrating evaluation within a course increases the motivation of the student to learn (Tai, Ajjawi, Boud, Dawson, & Panadero, 2017). Developing the skill of evaluating can form an additional objective within the course and can empower the student (Tai et al., 2017). Learning to evaluate does not refer to the result, but to the thinking process and the arguments that accompany it. Students learn to take responsibility for their learning process (Sitzmann & Ely, 2011). Generally, the teacher mainly evaluates and communicates the scores to the student. We could also focus on developing an assessment portfolio (Wolf, Whinery, & Hagerty, 1995). An assessment portfolio is a document that reflects the professional growth and learning process of a student. The portfolio makes the competencies, knowledge, skills and attitudes of the student visible as a developing professional. When students perceive the method of evaluation as inappropriate, they are more likely to focus on what is strictly necessary. This translates into superficial learning (Lizzio, Wilson, & Simons, 2002). Therefore, Postiaux (2017) recommends a match between the objectives, the method and the evaluation. An objective evaluation must meet the following quality criteria: validity (the right evaluation for the right measurement), reliability (multiple assessors must obtain the same evaluation) and relevance (an evaluation must be consistent with the objectives of the course) (Postiaux, 2017).

Education organized according to the High Impact Learning that Lasts (HILL) model can better adapt education to the world of work (Dochy, Berghmans, Koenen, & Segers, 2015) and tackle the perception of low competence. Firstly, by using a problem situation, a project or a case study from the professional field; one can narrow the gap between an exercise in a course and the future position. Here we think of tests in laboratories, role-playing in the classroom, etc. Studies show that students have positive perceptions about solving relevant problems, which is more related to urgency, gap, problem and agency (De Corte, 2000; Vermunt, 1998) and this contributes to experiential learning (Boud, 1994). Secondly, action and knowledge sharing can also contribute to job match because it confronts the student during the course with a problem he can also encounter in his professional life. One can provide an entire course such as with problem-based learning. Finally, adding an internship period would reduce the gap between academic education and their future position.

We suggest a continuous supervision at the request of the (starting) assistant and professor. Low relatedness can be tackled by collaboration, interaction and coaching through peer learning (training given by another assistant or teacher) and peer coaching (coaching given by another assistant or teacher) (Dochy et al., 2015).

Conclusion

Satisfying the basic psychological needs is the motor for developing autonomous motivation; frustrating the basic needs rather causes a controlled motivation or demotivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000). The present study sheds some theoretical light on the satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs and the context characteristics in the military learning environment. Our model suggests a mediating role of basic needs satisfaction between the learning environment and students’ motivation. The contribution of this study to the literature is the identification of context characteristics in the military learning environment that affect the satisfaction of basic needs, which in turn has an impact on the student characteristic, i.e. motivation. This opens a venue for future quantitative research, in order to investigate this relationship and can help to optimize educational practices to set up interventions.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, [A.L.]. The data are not publicly available due to restrictions their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, [A.L.]. The data are not publicly available due to restrictions their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

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