The sample, recruited using convenience sampling, consisted of 93 undergraduate students pursuing various courses (e.g., Hotel management, Maths, Statistics, English) from colleges across Delhi, India (such as the colleges under University of Delhi; Delhi Institute of Hotel Management), in the age group 17-23 years (mean age= 19.27, SD= 1.25). 49 females and 44 males, from low to high middle-class background, with fluency in spoken English, participated in the study.

The study had a quasi-experimental, between-subject design, that included two experimental groups (autonomy granting and controlling prosody) and one control group (neutral prosody). Follow-up interviews were also conducted with a subset of students.

We used The Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) (Deci & Ryan, 2005) and the Passi-Usha Test of Creative Problem Solving (PUTCPS) (Passi & Kumar, 1996, as cited in Kohser, 2006), for the present study. The IMI (Deci & Ryan, 2005) is a 37 item, 7-point Likert-type scale. The response for each item ranges from “not true at all” to “very true”. It consists of seven subscales- enjoyment/ interest, value/usefulness, perceived competence, effort, felt pressure and tension, perceived choice, and relatedness, out of which we used the first six subscales for our research. The overall scale is internally consistent (alpha= 0.85), and also shows high discriminant and face validity (Ostrow & Heffernan, 2018).

The PUTCPS (Passi & Kumar, 1996, as cited in Kohser, 2006) identifies creative talent among children and adults. It is a subjective test that includes 7 item problems to which non-verbal responses have to be drawn. It assesses the development of critical, creative (originality and elaboration), and integrative thinking skills. The test-retest reliability of the full scale (0.85), the originality dimension (0.74), and the elaboration dimension (0.86) is high. The concurrent validity, which was measured by correlating it with Passi test of creativity (0.40) and Torrance test of creativity (0.56), also lies in the upper range.

We analyzed the data using one-way ANOVA on SPSS v16.0, testing for significant differences in measures of teaching effectiveness across the three groups. The effect size (eta-squared) was also calculated for each variable.

The descriptive statistics on the variables of Interest are presented in Table 2. As can be seen, on intrinsic motivation, perceived choice, and creative problem solving, the group exposed to the autonomy-granting prosody scored the highest, while the participants in the controlling prosody group scored maximum on task value and tension felt. Highest scores on perceived competence and effort expended were achieved by the neutral prosody group. These statistics are interpreted in more detail below.

Research Question 1:If the prosody used by a teacher changes, what impact does it have on intrinsic motivation of students and its related variables of tension, task valuing, perceived competence, perceived choice, and effort expended?

Table 3 shows that the participants in the three groups did not seem to significantly differ from each other on intrinsic motivation or any other variables related to the same (p> 0.05). The effect size values were also in the range from small to medium (Watson, 2019), suggesting that these constructs were not strongly impacted by the independent variable, i.e., the prosody. The maximum impact prosody had was on perceived choice of the participants, where it accounted for 5.4% variance, while it accounted for only 0.2% variance in their perceived competence.

Research Question 2:Is students’ creative problem-solving ability impacted by the type of prosody used?

Post hoc analysis revealed that the autonomy-granting group did significantly better than the neutral prosody group (F= 6.01, p<0.05, mean difference=−19.93, p<0.05) on creativity. In terms of its sub-dimensions, the same pattern was found for the scores on elaboration (F=5.77, p<0.05, mean difference=−18.37, p<0.05), while no significant differences were found in originality scores (F=2.65, p<0.05). The effect size, however, was in the low range for all three variables (Watson, 2019), suggesting that even though prosody did impact the creativity of participants, it only accounted for around 1% variance.

We content analyzed the interviews of the participants and calculated a frequency count for responses to each question.

As can be seen from Table 7, most participants had positive views about the use of recorded instructions.

They mentioned that it helped them concentrate better and removed distractions that are associated with face-to-face teaching. In spite of this, they could not form an emotional bond with the “virtual” teacher, and were not much impacted by the tone in which the instructions were given to them.

Overall, the students in all three conditions positively viewed the tasks as fun activities, easy and valuable (Table 6). However, they felt that their solutions to the items in PUTCPS (Passi & Kumar, 1996, as cited in Kohser, 2006) were not good enough to be implemented. Those in the autonomy-granting group differed from others; in that, they thought they had more independence in coming up with solutions, and were thinking more pro-socially when trying to come up with ideas.

As reported in the results, pre-recorded instructions were well received by most of the participants, but despite this, the results of the present study varied from what was shown previously by Weinstein et al. (2017, 2019).

The participants were all intrinsically motivated to participate, were mostly tension free during the study, and put in effort while performing the tasks. Furthermore, while the students in the autonomy-granting and controlling group were in a pleasant mood while doing the activities, those in the neutral prosody group were in a more negative and serious mood (Table 7).

It could be the general lack of concern for prosody as perceived by the students in our sample. Seven out of the nine participants reported being more focused on the words than the tone of voice, indicating passive listening. An interviewee in the controlling condition, for instance, reported that “Just the words had an impact on me, the tone did not matter”. However, research done previously has found that to create a difference, the listeners need to be attentive to the verbal cues of speech (Paulmann et al. 2019). Moreover, even though all students had positive views about the use of pre-recorded instructions, majority of them (8 out of 9) reported not having experienced any connection with the instructor, which is necessary if the speaker wants to create any considerable impact on the listeners (Roth & Assor, 2012). Research has also shown that communication of emotions and motivation differ from each other. A teacher could be using an autonomy-supportive tone, but may still seem overpowering to her students (Zougkou et al. 2017). Since we did not vary emotional expression, this could be a possible reason for no substantive difference. These findings raise concerns regarding how effective prosody varies across cultural domains, in creating an impact on individuals. Even though no data on the current participants’ cultural background was noted, it may be pertinent to remark that our sample chosen were from central universities in India, where students from all over the country enroll. By virtue of this aggregation, they do represent varied cultural contexts. Therefore, it may be apt to surmise that prosody may not have a significant role to play in the present Indian cultural context!

To capture how the participants diversity, or the lack thereof, could have contributed to the earnest findings, the related constructs of selection bias and confirmation bias can be explored. Confirmation bias occurs when an individual favors information that confirms their pre-existing beliefs. Selection bias refers to when proper randomization is not used in the selection of the participants of a study, and so the sample shares some common characteristics which affect the results. We conducted this study on students studying in New Delhi, India, irrespective of whichever culture they originally came from. The education system in the capital of India, is structured in such a way that students are accustomed to a certain degree of control and do accord it a status of a ‘norm’. Because of this, they may not have responded positively to autonomy-granting prosody. On the contrary, this conditioning accentuates the students to find a controlling prosody motivating to them! Besides, there is no previous research evidence to throw light on prosody as significantly impacting teaching effectiveness. Factors such as presentation style, subject knowledge, maintaining discipline and decorum, and showing responsibility for student failure contribute more to the value of a teacher in India (Bambawale et al. 2018; Barman & Bhattacharyya, 2017).

The setting of the study may also have contributed to the results. The fact that it was a curated situation in which we dictated what the participants had to do, might have possibly overridden the impact of prosody on the students’ levels of autonomy and intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, previous research has demonstrated that under laboratory conditions, it is more difficult to escape from a controlling message as it tends to hold more attentional resources, while autonomous messages may be discounted if they are not self-relevant (Zougkou et al. 2017). As the activities we used were self-explanatory, it is possible that participants in the autonomous condition did not pay much attention to the instructions, while controlling instructions may still have been attended to, because of their inherent nature.

Interestingly, even though the prosody had no impact on other variables, the autonomy-granting tone did enhance participants’ creativity (F=6.02, p<0.05). One of the many reasons that have been rendered, is that when the psychological needs of an individual are met under an autonomy-granting environment, it enhances their constructive tendencies. This is in line with the Theory of Self-Determination (Deci & Ryan, 1985), positing that autonomy enhances the intrinsic motivation of individuals, which further improves their creativity and well-being.

An autonomy-granting tone may have put the participants in a favorable mood, which mediates the relationship between autonomy and creative problem solving (Weinstein et al. 2019). Autonomy allows individuals to get in touch with their true self and enhances their focus and attention on the task at hand (Gillet et al. 2012). Positive emotions, in turn, build cognitive resources which are adaptive, and thus lead to higher performance, as given by The Broaden and Build Theory. The interview responses support this understanding. In the autonomy-granting condition, all three participants reported experiencing a positive mood during the study, whereas participants in the neutral prosody group reported a more negative and serious mood. To quote one student, “I was in a serious mood and trying to do the task with my 100%. I was serious and focused. After it was over, I was relieved that I could get it done.”

Since the items in the tasks were ill-defined and infinite solutions could be generated, autonomy may have also made the students feel independent in coming up with accurate and feasible solutions to the problems (Nair & Alkiyumi, 2011). Participants in the autonomy-granting condition stated, “I felt free to come up with any solutions I wanted, based on the situation. There were no restrictions, we could use colored pens, everything was free. I loved it, I drew whatever I could.” Individuals in the neutral condition, however, reported, “I had some problems, like, what to draw, what solution has to be there, I didn’t feel I was doing it correctly.”

It has also been found that when exposed to autonomy-granting prosody, individuals’ pro-social tendencies are enhanced (Grant & Berry, 2011), which leads to greater creativity, and more elaborate and useful solutions, finds support in our interview. All three participants in the autonomy-granting condition said that their solutions would help other people, while only one participant in the neutral condition said so, the other two did not feel this way. To quote, “The solutions I came up with were not very great. So, I didn’t do them with the purpose of helping other people.”

A noteworthy finding is that participants’ creativity in the autonomy-group was higher not because they gave more original responses, but because they elaborated more on them. The fact that participants could not implement the solutions they came up with, could have reduced the originality of their ideas. As the interview responses reveal, all participants had low expectations about their ideas getting implemented. The setting of the experiment, and the kind of incentives that were offered to the participants in the study, may have accounted for such findings. Giving explicit rewards for an activity leads to a reduction in originality as compared to when non-contracted for rewards, or no rewards are given. Since the participants were offered chocolates as a token of their participation, and this was informed to them beforehand, it could have led to a reduction in the originality of ideas.

The present research gives insight into how a teacher can achieve positive outcomes such as building the intrinsic motivation of students, enhancing their competence, and reducing stress. We found that one way to do so, is to modulate the voice while giving instructions. Instructors should use an autonomy-granting tone whenever possible, to enhance their students’ divergent thinking and problem-solving capacity which subscribes to the need-supportive teaching framework. Moreover, before using an autonomy-granting tone, the teacher must explain to the students the concept of tone of voice, and the tactics she would be using to engage the students, so that passive listening does not occur. This does not mean that a neutral or a controlling tone should never be used by a teacher. Depending on the context and the task at hand (e.g.- to deal with indiscipline), an instructor can sometimes shift to a neutral or controlling prosody. In addition, as the need supportive framework advances, it is equally important to involve students in the classroom activities. The present research suggests that this can be done by conveying liking and care towards the students. Other suggestions to create a positive classroom, in line with what McBer posits, include highlighting the positive and fun aspects of tasks, connecting classroom activities and homework to long-term goals of students, and using more problem-solving activities, can be folded into the daily teaching curriculum. Teachers should also control the tasks’ level of difficulty according to the students’ skills, discuss practical applications, and implement the ideas students come up with, even if only at the classroom level.

In addition to teaching and education, the results of this study have implications for workers in the fields of counseling and advocacy. Counselors and psychotherapists should especially keep in mind the prosody they are using with their client, as it can impact the client’s emotional state during the counseling sessions, the quality of the therapeutic relationship, and the effort client puts into bringing about change. The prosody used also influences advocates, whose jobs are to convince other people through what they say. They must learn which tone to use under which condition in order to create a longer lasting effect on listeners.