The Opposite of Control:
Deweyan Aesthetics, Motivation, and Learning
Under review, Educational Researcher
David Wong
Michigan State University
In most contemporary cognitive views, the ability to be in control of one's thinking and actions are important qualities of the motivated learner. Many educators associate
Dewey with this cognitive/rational perspective because he wrote about the importance of doing and reflection. Certainly, Dewey promoted the value of thought and intention.
However, Dewey also emphasized that in all educative experience there is undergoing – the non-rational, opposite of control complement of reason and control. In this essay, I argue that theories of learning and motivation within the cognitive/rational paradigm cannot provide a complete account of worthwhile educational experiences.
Transformation and passion require learners to be acted upon by something beyond their rational understanding and control and such experiences can not be fully explained from a perspective that only emphasizes conscious, logical reasoning and self-control. Instead, any complete account of learning and motivation must have a place for Dewey’s undergoing - the "opposite of control."
The "control" perspective in education and psychology
1

In most contemporary cognitive views, the ability to be in control of one's thinking and actions are important qualities of the motivated learner. Standing back from one's "self" or situation to gain understanding and control is often cited as a defining quality of higher level psychological activities such as problem solving and reflection. Greeno, Collins, and Resnick (1992) have called this general perspective the “cognitive/rational” view.
Central to this perspective is the work of Piaget (1952) for whom human development was the emergence of logico-mathematical reasoning: the ability to interact with the world intentionally, abstractly, and from an objective distance. Similarly, neo-Piagetian and information processing constructs such as executive processes, metamemory, and metacognition highlight that learners are intelligent to the degree they are aware and in control of their thoughts and action (c.f. Case,1985; Flavell & Wellman, 1977).
Contemporary perspectives on motivation have, perhaps, developed the role reason and control to its most sophisticated level (c.f. Ames, & Archer, 1988; Deci & Ryan, 1985;
Nicholls, 1984; Paris & Newman, 1990; Pintrich & Schunk, 1996). Even Vygotsky (cf.
1978, 1986) who worked beyond the mainstream cognitive perspective saw higher order functioning as the ability to objectify experience in the form of language in order to control it.
The relationship between control and general positive psychological outcomes is, perhaps, most prominent in the study of intrinsic motivation. Iyengar and Lepper (1999) provide a good summary of this point:
Theorists studying intrinsic motivation have provided the clearest demonstration of the link between the provision of choice and human motivation. By far the most
2

prominent current analysis of this concept – that of Deci and his colleagues (e.g.,
Deci, 1981; Deci & Ryan, 1985), drawing in part on earlier work by deCharms (1968)
– virtually equates intrinsic motivation with individual choice and personal "selfdetermination." In this analysis, people are viewed as actors seeking to exercise and validate a sense of control over their external environments. As a result, they are theorized to enjoy, to prefer, and to persist at activities that provide them with the opportunity to make choices, to control their own outcomes, and to determine their own fate (Condry, 1977; Deci, 1975, 1981; Lepper & Malone, 1987; Malone &
Lepper, 1987; Nuttin, 1973; Zuckerman, Porac, Lathin, Smith, & Deci, 1978).
Conversely, the absence of choice and control has been hypothesized and shown to produce a variety of detrimental effects on intrinsic motivation, life satisfaction, and health status (e.g., Deci, Speigel, Ryan, Koestner, & Kaufman, 1982; Schultz &
Hanusa, 1978; Seligman, 1975).
The emphasis on control and rationality is, of course, not only found in the realm of education and psychology. Instead, the history of Western ethics, morality, and knowledge could be construed as the story of the rise of reason and control. The drama in this story comes from confrontations between reason and three “forces of evil.” One is injustice as characterized by the oppression of dogma, class, and nobility. The second evil is our own animal nature manifested in instinct, desire, and will. The third is ignorance emerging from sensation, intuition, mysticism, and emotion. It has become part of our Western psyche to believe that the virtuous, enlightened, or worthwhile life is impossible without reason, consciousness, and control.
3

In this essay, I acknowledge that control is, indeed, essential to worthwhile learning experiences. However, I also propose that deep engagement and transformation require an element of the “opposite of control” – that is, an opening up and yielding to influences beyond one’s reason and control. Although I take care to acknowledge that having no choices or control is detrimental to motivation, I also propose that to be compelled or gripped by “outside forces” is often what makes an activity deeply engaging. I call on
Dewey’s (1934) later work on aesthetics – as most fully developed in “Art as
Experience” - to provide a framework for considering how control and its opposite might be conceptualized and related to motivation and learning.
Dewey’s aesthetics: More than doing and reflection
To many educators, the importance of reason and control finds its highest expression in the writings of John Dewey. “Learning by doing and reflecting” is a common synopsis of
Dewey’s perspective on learning. In this view, one learns by doing and reflecting upon what one is doing (metacognition) and what one has done (post-activity reflection).
Dewey is often associated with approaches to learning that emphasize intentional, thoughtful, problem-driven, student-centered activity. For example, the Fostering a
Community of Learners (FCL) classrooms designed by Brown and Campione (1990,
1994) emphasize “learning by doing” and metacognitive reflection. Likewise, many of the innovative technology environments (e.g. the Jasper series; CSILE, Scardemalia &
4

Bereiter, 1994) were designed to support student action (exploration, problem solving, participation in a learning community, etc.) and reflection.
Indeed, Dewey does emphasize the value of doing and reflecting, especially in his writing for educators (c.f. How We Think, 1933). Preceding the cognitive revolution by more than 30 years, Dewey viewed learning as more than simply establishing action-reaction
(stimulus-response, reflex arc) patterns. Instead, knowledge and meaning are constructions of the active, conscious mind with intentional action and careful reflection as key processes.
However, for Dewey, educative experience requires more than doing and reflection - control and reason, acting on the world and standing back and thinking about it.
Educative experience also requires "undergoing" – an aspect of learning largely overlooked by most educators. Dewey (1934) writes:
There is…an element of undergoing, of suffering in its large sense, in every experience. Otherwise, there would be no taking in of what preceded (LW.10.47-
48).
Undergoing is the non-controlling, non-rational complement of doing and reflecting. To undergo or “to suffer” is to be acted upon by the world and is the non-controlling complement of doing or acting on the world. Also, in undergoing, meaning is sensed or felt - the non-rational complement of cognitive/rational ways of knowing.
5

Undergoing: Non-rational and the opposite of control
Why is the construct of “undergoing” essential to any account of worthwhile educative experiences? Two reasons come to mind. First, when people describe compelling experiences, the construct of undergoing – being acted upon by the world - seems to emerge in their language. For example, we are “swept away” in a passionate relationship. It is not surprising that we “fall” in love as if pulled by an inexorable force.
Intense films or books grip us; great ideas seize us; laughter infects us. We are taken
“aback” (a sailing term referring to the force of the wind) or “blown away” when we meet something surprising. As new understanding dawns on us, we first get the gist
(from the German “geist” meaning spirit and related to ghost). The idea of undergoing pervades our everyday language and is even more common in the language of literature and poetry. I take this as evidence that undergoing captures something central in powerful experiences.
There is a second reason why the construct of undergoing is important. The cognitive perspective, with its emphasis on the rational individual as the locus of meaning-making, is vulnerable to nagging philosophical and psychological problems. Foremost among these problems is the question of how new knowledge emerges. That is, since we always see, understand, or act in the world within the limits of our own habits, preconceptions, and prejudices, how can we ever be truly transformed by our experiences? Dewey approaches this age-old problem by positing forms of meaning and ways of knowing
“outside” the realm of verbal, reflective, and intentional activity. These forms of
6

meaning are qualitative: they are qualities essential and intrinsic to a situation.
Qualitative meaning contrasts with meaning “in the head” – that is, meaning derived from rational/cognitive processes. Humans can sense this “external” meaning and, thus,
Dewey explains how learners move beyond the constraints of prior knowledge and habits
(see Prawat (2001) and Garrison (1997, 2001) for excellent contemporary treatments of the specific nature of Dewey’s epistemology).
The idea that qualitative meaning can be external to our rational and conscious mind and intrinsic to a situation is complex and deserves elaboration. What distinguishes meaning as “qualitative”? Qualitative meaning is that which is sensed. By sense, I am not referring to sensation or sensory, i.e. seeing, touching, or tasting, but rather to a feeling of knowing. Consider, instead, how we sense danger or gain a sense of what is being said.
Dewey (1958) clarifies by distinguishing sense from signification:
The latter involves use of a quality as a sign or index of something else, as when the red of a light signifies danger, and the need of bringing a moving locomotive to a stop. The sense of a thing, on the other hand, is an immediate and immanent meaning; it is meaning which is itself felt or directly had (LW.1.200).
Im-mediate means unmediated by conceptual or intellectual processing. Immanent means inherent within a situation, as contrasted with derived from a situation. Meaning felt or directly had is not named, quantified, analyzed, synthesized, or judged. When one gains a sense of a thing, meaning is qualitative. Dewey (1958) writes
7

…quality is…not to be confused with…order. Quality is quality, direct, immediate and undefinable. Order is a matter of relation, of definition, dating, placing and describing. It is discovered in reflection, not directly had… (LW.1.92)
In undergoing, qualitative meaning comes to us. We do not construct or get it, instead,
Dewey might say that it gets us. Dewey (1933) describes this process in a way that some may find surprising.
The having of ideas in not so much something we do, as it is something that happens to us (LW.8.145).
In essence, ideas are “out there” waiting to seize us. As we sense the meaning of these ideas, we feel or anticipate their potential to have us think, act, and feel in new ways.
The qualitative knowing of undergoing is beyond what we can put into words, beyond what we can conceptualize. Jackson (1998) writes,
He (Dewey) proceeds to insist that our sense of the situation in which we are currently immersed no matter what its content-"is not and cannot be stated or made explicit." Instead, its meaning "is taken for granted, "understood" or implicit in all propositional symbolization (p.16).
Those who think that learning is mainly about conscious action and reflection are undoubtedly puzzling how one can have a sense of a situation without being able to describe it. Jackson (1998) explains how qualitative meaning is necessarily indescribable.
But Dewey's point is that such a description can only be offered proleptically; we can speak of it only after the fact. As soon as we begin to offer a description of the
8

situation we are in, we have exited that situation (by transforming it into an object) and entered another one (p.17).
In summary, in Dewey’s aesthetics the receptive undergoing, or being acted upon by the world, is the inextricable complement of doing, or acting upon the world. This receptive element of meaning-making tends to be underdeveloped by cognitive perspectives that portray learning as under the learner’s physical or cognitive control. Although many theorists do attend to the interaction or give-and-take between person and world, they still describe learning, at its best, as self-regulated, intentional, goal-directed, and so on. For
Dewey, transformative experience requires not only gaining control, but also relinquishing control. One must let go, as much as possible, long-held ways of seeing, doing, understanding, and feeling. The degree that one undergoes is the degree that one can sense the possibilities in new ideas, the worldview of other people, the design of great art, and so on.
In Table 1, I highlight important qualities of control and its opposite. It is important to note that since Dewey conceptualizes doing as the necessary complement of undergoing, he does not think of control in quite the same way as many contemporary psychologists
(who pay much less attention to undergoing). Therefore, Table 1 does not represent the two halves of Dewey’s view of educative experience. Instead, qualities of the control element are drawn from the mainstream cognitive paradigm while the opposite of control elements are taken from Dewey’s perspective.
9

Table 1: Qualities of Control and the Opposite of Control
Control
(from cognitive theories)
Opposite of Control
(from Dewey’s theory of aesthetics)
Predominant activity
* action, individual acts on the world
* intentional, goal-directed activity
* undergoing, world acts on individual
* activity not intentionally directed
Nature of meaning
* conceptual, symbolic, verbal, mediated
* derived by rational processes
(e.g. induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis)
* qualitative, non-verbal, immediate
* sensed, perceived directly
(i.e. without rational processing, is directly had)
* at a distance from the experience: before (prediction,
* within the experience
(aesthetically) planning), above
(metacognition), or after
(reflection)
Goal of learning and education
* mastery/control of self, perception of competence
* expand and experience full human capacity
* mastery/control of environment * expand perception of environment
10

11

Control and its opposite in relation
To take seriously the idea of the opposite of control is to adopt a radically different perspective on learning. For most educators, Dewey is synonymous with active, inquirybased learning. It must be shocking, then, to find surrender or receptivity as a central part of Dewey’s (1934)vision of learning.
The esthetic or undergoing phase of experience is receptive. It involves surrender.
(LW.10.59-60)
Progressive educators will likely associate receptivity with behaviorism and associationism and not with any kind of deep understanding. They would assert that if undergoing were passive, learners would be little more than flotsam carried along in a rushing stream. Although there would be movement and even change, transformation
(and we should not even call it that) would be absent of any intelligence or significance.
But, Dewey’s (1934) undergoing represents a different kind of “passivity”. Reading the previous excerpt in a fuller context…
The esthetic or undergoing phase of experience is receptive. It involves surrender.
But adequate yielding of the self is possible only through a controlled activity that may well be intense. In much of our intercourse with our surroundings we withdraw; sometimes from fear, if only of expending unduly our store of energy; sometimes from preoccupation with other matters, as in the case of recognition. Perception is an act of the going-out of energy in order to receive, not a withholding of energy. To
12

steep ourselves in a subject-matter we have first to plunge into it. When we are only passive to a scene, it overwhelms us and, for lack of answering activity, we do not perceive that which bears us down. We must summon energy and pitch it at a responsive key in order to take in. (LW.10.59-60)
In undergoing, there is going out in order to receive; plunging in in order to steep; pitching in order to take in. In these paradoxical terms we sense the value that Dewey sees in receptivity and surrender. In powerful experiences, individuals make themselves available to inspiration; they open themselves and their ideas to outside influence.
In the paradoxical, Dewey deftly illustrates how distinctions between doing and undergoing - between activity and receptivity, between control and its opposite - are actually false dichotomies. To focus on one or the other is to surely miss what is important. For Dewey educative experience is the unity of doing and undergoing.
An experience has pattern and structure because it is not just doing and undergoing in alternation, but consists of them in relationship... The action and its consequence must be joined in perception. This relationship is what gives meaning; to grasp it is the objective of all intelligence. (Dewey: LW.10.50-51).
In intelligent activity, learners appreciate the relationship between their action on the world and the world’s action on them. The drama of powerful experiences is compelled and organized as potential in a situation is sensed, acted upon, felt again, and so on.
The opposite of control and the teacher
13

Educators may find it difficult to accept that undergoing – the opposite of reason and control – deserves serious attention in schools. Schools is, after all, a place where discipline in all its forms is appreciated (e.g. disciplinary knowledge, self-discipline, order, rules and consequences). However, Dewey clearly felt differently. Dewey scholar Phillip Jackson (1998) writes in “John Dewey and the Lessons of Art”,
The arts, above all, teach us something about what it means to undergo an experience.
Successful encounters with art objects and performances offer a set of standards by which to judge ordinary experiences. (p. 124).
I believe that both Jackson and Dewey would agree that education should also teach students what it means to undergo an experience. Instead of objects of art, subject matter ideas are the source of inspiration. Dewey (1933) writes:
There is no mistake more common in schools than ignoring the self-propelling power of an idea. Once it is aroused, an alert mind fairly races along with it. Of itself it carries the student into new fields; it branches out into new ideas as a plant sends forth new shoots (LW.8.334).
When Dewey refers to the "self-propelling power" of ideas, he is encouraging teachers to believe that artfully presented subject-matter could be so compelling that students are swept along to think, feel, and act differently.
Educators may find it difficult to imagine learning so compelling where students are swept away by the power of an idea. It is a rare thing, indeed. The most cynical will dismiss this vision of education as brainwashing, mob mentality, or cult behavior and
14

having no place in the classroom. Although educators rightly recoil from instances of misguided manipulation, the truth is this: we only wish our teaching could be so moving.
In Dewey’s vision of education, the job of the teacher would be to not only provide students with opportunities to choose and think on their own, but also to be someone students can trust in the midst of learning experiences that are compelling and, in some respect, beyond their control. The moral weight of teaching comes not only from the responsibility of ensuring "liberty and justice for all," but also from the realization of just how much influence good teachers and powerful ideas can have on students (the film
“Dead Poets Society” is a good fictional illustration of the moral weight inherent in good teaching).
The notion that students cannot choose at certain (not all) times during learning experiences may seem oppressive. It may remind us that many students already find school as a place where things are beyond their control and choice. There is an important difference to be noted here, however. In oppressive situations, choice is wrested from students in order to contain and conform thought and behavior. The teachers' goal is obedience and conformity rather than inspiration. By contrast, when students undergo powerful learning experiences, the teachers’ goal is to open up, rather than close down, the realm of possibilities for students. Thus, the wise educator understands the context of choice and appreciates how the value of choice must be balanced against the value of undergoing potentially educative experiences.
15

Although Dewey highlights the role of the opposite of control, the importance of choice is not diminished in learning. In fact, I think Dewey actually expands its role. I suggest intelligent learning requires students to make four kinds of choices. There are two decisions about whether to try one activity or another and whether to use one learning strategy or another. Dewey would agree with constructs such as self-regulation, intentional learning, goal-directed activity, and strategic learning that highlight the importance of students deciding whether and how to engage in particular activities. In addition, students decide whether to undergo, to relinquish control, in the experience of an activity. To be open to new experiences, to new ideas, or to another person’s point of view is a conscious decision. Finally, Dewey emphasizes a fourth domain of student choice - an important element of his work that goes largely unappreciated by most progressive educators. Central to his philosophy of pragmatism is the idea that individuals have responsibility in determining the meaning and value of an experience undergone. In Dewey’s view, meaning and value should neither be analyzed a priori nor coerced by dint of the teacher’s authority. Thus, in addition to choosing “whether and what” activities to engage in, students must also accept the larger, more complex, responsibility of deciding the meaning and value of their experiences.
The opposite of control and virtues of the good learner
At the beginning of this essay, Iyengar and Lepper (1999) suggested that the current psychological paradigm “virtually equates intrinsic motivation with individual choice and personal self-determination.” By highlighting the role of undergoing, I have proposed
16

that deeply engaged learners have the capacity to both act on the world and be acted upon, to be active and receptive. In addition, these learners are both rational and nonrational, skeptical and trusting, intentional and spontaneous, and self-aware and un-selfconscious.
In contemporary psychology and education, reason and control are more than just psychological processes - they are virtues. They reflect and promote the kinds of human qualities that our society values. Recognizing that any image of an ideal learner also embodies a normative view of how we should be as human beings, I propose that schools should cultivate the following virtues in their students.
Courage. To relinquish control is to take a risk, and to take a risk demands courage.
Uncertainty and risk are key to transformation, drama, inquiry, and creativity. By the same token, uncertainty is at the dark heart of confusion and fear. To move beyond the comforts of one’s habits and worldview, to see the world, oneself, and other people as they truly are is an act of courage.
Sincerity. We often act or see the world in ways that protect our comfortable and safe ways. We shield our ego, our “self,” from harm. However, in order to be transformed, we have to act without thought of ourselves, if only momentarily. To act sincerely is to quiet the self as it manifests itself in selfishness, self-preservation, and selfconsciousness. The aesthetic experience of undergoing is impossible without self-less
17

sincerity. (See Gaskins (1999) for an interesting effort to bring an Eastern perspective to the analysis of motivation).
Honesty. By honesty, I refer mainly to honesty with oneself, rather than with others. In order to be transformed by experience, one has to sense and understand as clearly as possible what is undergone. For example, when we encounter a person with a very different worldview, can we see clearly and honestly our own reaction? To be honest is to work against the inertia of habit (in action and thinking) and the defensiveness of the ego. For Nietzsche (1976), honesty was essential in the process of becoming a higher kind of being. Similarly, in Sartre's existentialism, the lack of self-deception was key to choosing a worthy and meaningful existence.
Faith. To experience a new idea requires that one believes and acts, for the while, as if the idea were true. In undergoing, the critical eye is temporarily unseeing and, instead, there is wholehearted openness to possibilities. Kierkegaard saw this “subjective certainty” about “objective uncertainty” as the essence of faith. Dewey's educative experience, thus, brings together the seemingly incompatible elements of faith and reason
(particularly reason in the form of skepticism). How can one believe in something fully and still be open to its being false? This apparent contradiction is made more manageable when placed in a broader frame of reference. Although it is impossible to be both believing and skeptical at any point in time, it is possible over a period of time. The shift in perspective parallels the shift from Popper (1985) to Lakatos’s (1978) view of the nature of science. For Popper, the hallmark of genuine science was that scientists were
18

always skeptical of their own theories. No idea was ever believed to be “true” – just "not yet false." This formulation proved to be unrealistic and failed to account for the actual practice of successful scientists. Lakatos modified Popper’s view by placing it into a historical timeframe where the work of scientists was seen as a “programme” spanning a broader period of time. Within this programme, skepticism was required as a prominent, but not constant, characteristic of inquiry.
Conclusion
The control-oriented, cognitive/rational paradigm of contemporary psychology has produced an impressive corpus of conceptual and empirical work. Constructs such as self-regulation, strategic, internal locus of control, monitoring, metacognition, mastery, will power, and volition all reveal just how appealing and scientifically fruitful it has been to idealize reason and control. However, to attempt to learn and understand only through the exercise of reason and control is to severely limit what can be known and what can be experienced. Plato’s Meno paradox has made clear that rational activities such as induction or deduction can only lead to that which we are already familiar. When gripped too tightly by reason and control, the possibilities in a situation are restricted and so, also, are the chances that we might learn and be moved in the situation. Imagination and inspiration are more readily called forth with a light, open touch. So, inasmuch as learning and motivation depends on rationality and control, they cannot be fully
19

explained by them. Passion and intense engagement, learning and motivation at their best, also require undergoing - the opposite of control.
20

References
Ames, C. & Archer, J. (1988). Achievement goals in the classroom: Students’ learning strategies and motivation processes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(3), 260-
267.
Brown, A. L., & Campione, J. C. (1990). Communities of learning and thinking, or A context by any other name. Human Development, 21, 108-125.
Brown, A. L., & Campione, J. C. (1994). Guided discovery in a community of learners.
In K. McGilly (Ed.), Classroom lessons: Integrating cognitive theory and classroom practice (pp. 229-270). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.
Case, R. (1985). Intellectual Development: Birth to Adulthood. Orlando: Academic
Press.
Condry, J. (1977). Enemies of exploration: Self-initiated versus other-initiated learning.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 459-477. deCharms, R. (1968). Personal causation. New York: Academic Press.
Deci, E. L. (1975). Intrinsic motivation. New York: Plenum Press.
Deci, E.L. (1981). The psychology of self-determination. Lexington, MA: Heath.
Deci, E. & Ryan, R. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum.
Deci, E. L., Speigel, N. H., Ryan, R. M., Koestner, R., & Kaufman, M. (1982). The effects of performance standards on teaching styles: The behavior of controlling teachers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 852-859.
Dewey, J. (1933). How We Think. New York: Dover. (LW.8).
21

Dewey, J. (1934). Art as Experience. Perigree: New York. (LW.10).
Dewey, J. (1958). Experience and Nature. New York: Dover. (LW1).
Flavell, J. H., & Wellman, H. M. (1977). Metamemory. In R. V. Kail and J. W. Hagen
(Eds.), Perspectives on the Development of Memory and Cognition. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Garrison, J. (1997). Dewey and Eros: Wisdom and Desire in the Art of Teaching. New
York: Teachers College Press.
Garrison, J. (2001). Dewey and Eros: A Response to Prawat. Teachers College Record,
103(4), 722-738.
Gaskins, R. W. (1999). "Adding legs to a snake": A reanalysis of motivation and the pursuit of happiness from a Zen Buddhist perspective. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 91, 204-215.
Greeno, J. G., Collins, A. M., & Resnick, L. B. (1996). Cognition and learning. In J.
Greeno, A. Collins, & L. Resnick (Eds.) Handbook of Research in Educational
Psychology. New York: Macmillan.
Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (1999). Rethinking the role of choice: A cultural perspective on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76,
349-366.
Jackson, P. W. (1998). John Dewey and the Lessons of Art. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Lakatos, I. (1978). The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
22

Lepper, M. R., & Malone, T. W. (1987). Intrinsic motivation and instructional effectiveness in computer-based education. In R. E. Snow & M. J. Farr (Eds.),
Aptitude, learning and instruction: Vol. 3. Cognitive and affective process analysis
(pp. 255-286). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Malone, T. W., & Lepper, M. R. (1987). Making learning fun: A taxonomy of intrinsic motivations for learning. In R. E. Snow & M. J. Farr (Eds.), Aptitude, learning and instruction: Vol. 3. Cognitive and affective process analysis (pp. 223-253). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Neitzsche, F. W. (1976). Thus spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None. (W.
Kaufmann, Translator). Penguin: New York.
Nicholls, J. (1984). Achievement motivation: Conceptions of ability, subjective experience, task choice, and performance. Psychology Review, 91, 328-346.
Nuttin, J. R. (1973). Pleasure and reward in human motivation and learning. In D. E.
Berlyne & K. B. Madsen (Eds.), Pleasure, reward, preference (pp. 243-274). New
York: Academic Press.
Paris, S. G. & Newman, R. S. (1990). Developmental aspects of self-regulated learning.
Educational Psychologist, 25(1), 87-102.
Piaget, J. (1952). The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: Norton.
Plato. (1949). Meno: translated by B. Jowett. New York: Liberal Arts Press.
Popper (1985). The problem of demarcation. In D. Miller (Eds.), Popper Selections.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Prawat, R. S. (2001). Dewey and Peirce, the philosopher’s philosopher. Teachers College
Record, 103(4), 667-721.
23

Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1994). Computer support for knowledge-building communities. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3(3), 265-283.
Schultz, R., & Hanusa, B. H. (1978). Long-term effects of control and predictabilityenhancing interventions: Findings and ethical issues. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 36, 1194-1201.
Seligman, M. E. P. (1975). Helplessness: On depression, development, and death. San
Francisco: W. H. Freeman.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society. Edited by M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S.
Scribner, & E. Souberman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language (A. Kozulin, trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Zuckerman, M., Porac, J., Lathin, D., Smith, R., & Deci, E. L. (1978). On the importance of self-determination for intrinsically motivated behavior. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 4, 443-446.
24