In our research, we focus on learners’ K-16 characteristics that promote learning and well-being such as the quality of their motivation, their mindset or self-efficacy. We also focus on the characteristics of the learning environment that enhance learning and well-being such as teachers’ autonomy support, involvement or provision of structure. Our aim is to show how the learner and the educational context interact in the prediction of optimal educational outcomes.

Academic Staff
Assist. Prof. Aikaterini Michou

External Members
Prof. Melike Sayil (TED University)
Dr. Servet Altan
Dr. Gorkem Aydin

Research Students
Bengu Cilali, Ph.D. student
Izel Sari, MA student

Ongoing projects
“Let’s Keep the Baby but not the Bathwater: Distinguishing Benign from Harsh Social Comparisons in the Era of High Competition”, 1001 TUBITAK’s Research Grant

In seven experimental studies followed by an educational intervention, we investigate whether benign social comparisons can facilitate cognitive functioning, intrinsic motivation, and engagement, provided they are endorsed out of adaptive reasons such as out of interest, challenge-seeking, or community contribution.

Research team: Dr. Athanasios Mouratidis (PI), Dr. Aikaterini Michou, Prof. Melike Sayil, Ilke Candar and Izel Sari

Motivational Components and Feedback as Predictors of Adolescent Perceived Task Experience and Choice of Task Difficulty

In a two-by-two-by-two (2 achievement goals X 2 motivating styles X 2 feedbacks) experiment we investigate the effects of endorsing mastery intrapersonal goals (i.e., the goal to improve ones’ skills) or performance goals (i.e., the goal to outperform others) during an emotion recognition task for self-endorsed (autonomous) or induced-by-others (controlled) reasons on interest and enjoyment, perceived value, perceived competence, feeling of pressure/tension (self-reported outcomes) and choice of task difficulty (behavioural outcome) when positive (success) or negative (failure) feedback is given.

Research team: Dr. Aikaterini Michou, Prof. Maarten Vansteenkiste, Dr. Caroline Pulfrey and Dr. Servet Altan

Voice Characteristics of Autonomous-Supportive versus Controlling Teacher Instructions.

We investigate the role of prosody in identifying autonomy-supportive or controlling teaching style. In semantically neutral instructions, we examine whether students are able to identify the instructional prosody. We also investigate to what extent autonomy-supportive and controlling prosody are related with higher and lower, respectively, satisfaction of students’ psychological needs. We, finally, test whether the voice characteristics of the autonomy-supportive (or controlling) prosody of the semantically neutral instructions can be used to assess the quality of the interpersonal communication style of classroom events.

Research team: Dr. Aikaterini Michou, Prof. Konstantina Koutrouba, Dr. Vicky Giotsidi, Gulcehan Ceyhan

Completed projects

“Different resources, different trajectories: A three-year longitudinal project to study academic success as a function of adolescent, classroom, and family characteristics”, 1001 TUBITAK’s Research Grant

In this project we followed a large cohort (N = 4000) of high school students as they head from the 10th grade to the national university entrance exams, at the end of 12th grade. Through a multiple-wave (twice per academic year) and a multiple-informant assessment protocol (which includes the adolescents, their parents, and their math and Turkish language teachers), we aimed to unveil the key factors that predict adolescents’ different trajectories (or semester-to-semester fluctuations) on issues pertaining to students’ engagement, school-related success, and well-being.

Research team: Dr. Athanasios Mouratidis (PI), Dr. Aikaterini Michou, Prof. Melike Sayil, Dr. Aylin Kocak, Dr. Sule Selcuk, Aysenur Christ Alp, Burcu Cuvas.

Agentic Student, Supportive teacher: Exploring their joint role in the learning process.

In a 5-week diary study, we investigated the dynamic nature of the interplay between teachers’ autonomy support and provision of structure and students’ agentic engagement.  We also considered whether students’ proactive personality and situational autonomous versus controlled motivation could moderate the week-to-week relation of teacher motivating style and students’ engagement.

Research team: Dr. Aikaterini Michou, Dr. Servet Altan, Dr. Athanasios Mouratidis and Prof. Johnmarshall Reeve.

Publications of the Research Cluster

Michou, Α., Altan, S., Mouratidis, A., Reeve, J., & Malmberg, L.-E. (in press).
Week-to-week interplay between teachers’ motivating style and students’ engagement. Journal of Experimental Education.

Mouratidis, A., Michou, A., Sayil, M., & Altan, S. (in press). It is autonomous, not controlled motivation that counts: Linear and curvilinear relations of autonomous and controlled motivation to school grades. Learning and Instruction. doi: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2020.101433

Aydin, G. & Michou, A. (2020). Self-determined motivation and academic buoyancy as predictors of performance in normative settings. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 20, 964-980. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12338

Pulfrey, C., Vansteenkiste, M., & Michou, A.  (2019). Under pressure to achieve? The impact of type and style of task instructions on student cheating. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1624. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01624

Alp, A., Michou, A., Corlu, S., & Baray, G. (2018). Need satisfaction as mediator between classroom goal structures and students’ optimal educational experience. Learning and Individual Differences, 65, 80-89. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2018.05.012

Mouratidis, A., Michou, A., Aelterman, N., Haerens, L., & Vansteenkiste, M. (2018). Begin-of-school-year perceived autonomy-support and structure as predictors of end-of-school-year study efforts and procrastination: The mediating role of autonomous and controlled motivation. Educational Psychology, 38, 435-450. doi: 10.1080/01443410.2017.1402863

Mouratidis, A., Michou, A., Sayil, M., & Demircioğlu, A. (2018). Different goals, different pathways to success: Performance-approach goals as direct and mastery-approach goals as indirect predictors of grades in mathematics. Learning and Individual Differences, 61, 127-135. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2017.11.017