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The
Motivators’ Orientations Questionnaires
The Problems in Schools Questionnaire (PIS)
On the following pages you will find a series of vignettes. Each one
describes an incident and then lists four ways of responding to the situation.
Please read each vignette and then consider each responses in turn. Think
about each response option in terms of how appropriate you consider it
to be as a means of dealing with the problem described in the vignette.
You may might the option to be "perfect," in other words, "extremely
appropriate" in which case you would respond with the number 7. You
might consider the response highly inappropriate, in which case would
respond with the number 1. If you find the option reasonable you would
select some number between 1 and 7. So think about each option and rate
it on the scale shown below. Please rate each of the four options for
each vignette. There are eight vignettes with four options for each.
There are no right or wrong ratings on these items. People's styles differ,
and we are simply interested in what you consider appropriate given your
own style.
Some of the stories ask what you would do as a teacher. Others ask you
to respond as if you were giving advice to another teacher or to a parent.
Some ask you to respond as if you were the parent. If you are not a parent,
simply imagine what it would be like for you in that situation.
Please respond to each of the 32 items using the following scale.
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
| very inappropriate |
|
|
moderately appropriate |
|
|
very appropriate |
- Jim is an average student who has been working at grade level. During
the past two weeks he has appeared listless and has not been participating
during reading group. The work he does is accurate but he has not been
completing assignments. A phone conversation with his mother revealed
no useful information. The most appropriate thing for Jim's teacher
to do is:
- She should impress upon him the importance of finishing his assignments
since he needs to learn this material for his own good.
- Let him know that he doesn't have to finish all of his work now
and see if she can help him work out the cause of the listlessness.
- Make him stay after school until that day's assignments are done.
- Let him see how he compares with the other children in terms of
his assignments and encourage him to catch up with the others.
- At a parent conference last night, Mr. and Mrs. Greene were told that
their daughter Sarah has made more progress than expected since the
time of the last conference. All agree that they hope she continues
to improve so that she does not have to repeat the grade (which the
Greene's have been kind of expecting since the last report card). As
a result of the conference, the Greenes decide to:
- Increase her allowance and promise her a ten-speed if she continues
to improve.
- Tell her that she's now doing as well as many of the other children
in her class.
- Tell her about the report, letting her know that they're aware
of her increased independence in school and at home.
- Continue to emphasize that she has to work hard to get better
grades.
- Donny loses his temper a lot and has a way of agitating other children.
He doesn't respond well to what you tell him to do and you're concerned
that he won't learn the social skills he needs. The best thing for you
to do with him is:
- Emphasize how important it is for him to "control himself"
in order to succeed in school and in other situations.
- Put him in a special class which has the structure and reward
contingencies which he needs.
- Help him see how other children behave in these various situations
and praise him for doing the sme.
- Realize that Donny is probably not getting the attention he needs
and start being more responsive to him.
- Your son is one of the better players on his junior soccer team which
has been winning most of its games. However, you are concerned because
he just told you he failed his unit spelling test and will have to retake
it the day after tomorrow. You decide that the best thing to do is:
- Ask him to talk about how he plans to handle the situation.
- Tell him he probably ought to decide to forego tomorrow's game
so he can catch up in spelling.
- See if others are in the same predicament and suggest he do as
much preparation as the others.
- Make him miss tomorrow's game to study; soccer has been interfering
too much with his school work.
- The Rangers spelling group has been having trouble all year. How could
Miss Wilson best help the Rangers?
- Have regular spelling bees so that Rangers will be motivated to
do as well as the other groups.
- Make them drill more and give them special privileges for improvements.
- Have each child keep a spelling chart and emphasize how important
it is to have a good chart.
- Help the group devise ways of learning the words together (skits,
games, and so on).
- In your class is a girl named Margy who has been the butt of jokes
for years. She is quiet and usually alone. In spite of the efforts of
previous teachers, Margy has not been accepted by the other children.
Your wisdom would guide you to:
- Prod her into interactions and provide her with much praise for
any social initiative.
- Talk to her and emphasize that she should make friends so she'll
be happier.
- Invite her to talk about her relations with the other kids, and
encourage her to take small steps when she's ready.
- Encourage her to observe how other children relate and to join
in with them.
- For the past few weeks things have been disappearing from the teacher's
desk and lunch money has been taken from some of the children's desks.
Today, Marvin was seen by the teacher taking a silver dollar paperweight
from her desk. The teacher phoned Marvin's mother and spoke to her about
this incident. Although the teacher suspects that Marvin has been responsible
for the other thefts, she mentioned only the one and assured the mother
that she'll keep a close eye on Marvin. The best thing for the mother
to do is:
- Talk to him about the consequences of stealing and what it would
mean in relation to the other kids.
- Talk to him about it, expressing her confidence in him and attempting
to understand why he did it.
- Give him a good scolding; stealing is something which cannot be
tolerated and he has to learn that.
- Emphasize that it was wrong and have him apologize to the teacher
and promise not to do it again.
- Your child has been getting average grades, and you'd like to see
her improve. A useful approach might be to:
- Encourage her to talk about her report card and what it means
for her.
- Go over the report card with her; point out where she stands in
the class.
- Stress that she should do better; she'll never get into college
with grades like these.
- Offer her a dollar for every A and 50 cents for every B on future
report cards.
Scoring Information.
The procedure for scoring the questionnaire begins by averaging the
eight ratings in each of the four categories. The four categories are
highly controlling (HC), moderately controlling (MC), moderately autonomy
supportive (MA), and highly autonomy supportive (HA). The four subscale
scores (composed of the average of the eight responses for that subscale)
can be used separately, in multi-variate analyses, or they can be combined
into one overall reflection of the "Adult's Orientation Toward Control
Versus Autonomy Support with Children." The original procedure for
combining the four subscales into one total scale score, as described
in Deci, Schwartz, Sheinman, and Ryan (1981) involved weighting the average
for the highly controlling responses with a -2 (minus two); weighting
the moderately controlling average with -1 (minus one); weighting the
average for the moderately autonomy supportive subscales with +1; and
weighting the average for highly autonomy supportive subscale with +2.
The algebraic sum reflects the adults' orientations toward control versus
autonomy support, with a higher score reflecting a more autonomy supportive
orientation and a lower score or a more negative score reflecting a more
controlling orientation. However, more recent work (e.g., Reeve, Bolt,
& Cai, in press) has indicated that the so-called moderately autonomy
supportive subscale actually acts more like a Slightly Controlling subscale.
Accordingly, Reeve et al. recommended weighting the MA subscale 0 (zero),
rather than -1 (minus 1). The items making up the subscales are as follows.
HC 3, 5, 10, 16, 18, 21, 27, 32
MC 1, 8, 9, 14, 19, 22, 28, 31
MA 4, 6, 11, 15, 17, 24, 25, 30
HA 2, 7, 12, 13, 20, 23, 26, 29
References and Other Articles Using the Scale
Cai, Y., Reeve, J., & Robinson, D. T. (2002). Home schooling and
teaching style: Comparing the motivating styles of home school and public
school teachers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 372-380.
Deci, E. L., Schwartz, A. J., Sheinman, L., & Ryan, R. M. (1981).
An instrument to assess adults' orientations toward control versus autonomy
with children: Reflections on intrinsic motivation and perceived competence.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 73, 642-650.
Grolnick, W., Frodi, A., & Bridges, L. (1984). Maternal control style
and the mastery motivation of one-year-olds. Infant Mental Health Journal,
5, 72-82.
Reeve, J., Bolt, E., & Cai, Y. (1999). Autonomy-supportive teachers:
How they teach and motivate students. Journal of Educational Psychology,
91, 537-548.
Reeve, J. (1998). Autonomy support as an interpersonal motivating style:
Is it teachable? Contemporary Educational Psychology, 23, 312-330.
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