The Perils of Student Choice

Remote and hybrid engagement affords increased flexibility and choice for learners and workers, but questions remain about its efficacy. We leverage self-determination theory (SDT), a long-standing psychological framework for understanding motivation, to link competence, relatedness, and autonomy to learning satisfaction and performance. This framework provides a platform for assessing learning in two distinct modalities: hyflex and online only. Students experience greater choice affordance in a hyflex arrangement (one version of hybrid) compared to students in a fixed, online-only context. Contrary to the predictions of SDT, students in an autonomy-supportive hyflex arrangement experience less satisfaction compared to peers in an online-only setting. Within the hyflex context, a secondary aspect of SDT, peer-relatedness, leads to greater learner satisfaction. The empirical findings suggest practical implications about the importance of scaffolding for a successful learning environment and theoretical implications highlighting the interconnection between autonomy and relatedness in SDT.