When Self-Determination Doesn’t Work Well: Exploring Instructors’ MOOCs Motivation in Confucian Cultural Context

The self-determined theory (SDT) brings significant insights of self-motivation and autonomy on explaining individual behavior regulation process. However, it seems hard to be applied on explaining people behaviors in the Confucian society where individuals take action to fulfill social expectations on the obligations under particular social relationships. This research-in-progress study applied a cultural lens to explore the motivations corresponding to social obligations that individual perceived in the social relationships. We conducted a qualitative exploration anchored on a case study that university professors conducted MOOCs as an additional effort besides their regular teaching tasks. The preliminary findings illustrated four social determined motivations to unfold the social role, obligation and interpretation on MOOCs. This study drawing on the special cultural context could provide an opportunity to reflect the SDT that was rooted in the individualism cultural context