Students with a task goal orientation focus on their own progress in mastering skills and knowledge, and they define success in those terms. Students with an ability goal orientation focus on appearing competent, often in comparison to others, and define success accordingly. If adopting a task goal orientation is related to positive educational outcomes for students, the question then arises as to how such an orientation can be fostered. Competence involves understanding how to, and believing that one can, achieve various outcomes. Relatedness involves developing satisfactory connections to others in one's social group.
Autonomy involves initiating and regulating one's own actions.
Most of the research in self-determination theory focuses on the last of these three needs. Within the classroom, autonomy needs could be addressed through allowing some student choice and input on classroom decision making. For young adolescent students, with their increased cognitive abilities and developing sense of identify, a sense of autonomy may be particularly important. Students at this stage say that they want to be included in decision making and to have some sense of control over their activities. Features such as the provision of choice over what types of tasks to engage in and how much time to allot to each are associated with students' feelings of self-determination.