· Freely choose work and duration of time spent on it

· Occasional teacher guidance à if the child cant decide what to do if they need to catch up on some missed work

· No homework

· Children learn better when they are able to choose tasks, if they could choose what they did during "learning time" they were likely to complete similar activities during “play time”

· Choice of activity leads to greater motivation to complete it

· Positively influenced creativity

· Choice of environment can lead to better wellbeing - happier

· Montessori settings facilitate child choice by ordering resources and materials in a specific way & within a Childs reach

· Also furniture is moveable and child sized

· Learning to make choices

·  Limiting choices = only having one of each resource

· More choices are available as the child grows with age

Crandall & Lacey, 1972

·      Study on children’s sense of control on their life measured through performance tasks. 

·      50 elementary school children 

·      Study focused on students being given drawings and analysing what they saw 

·      Locus of control - the way someone see’s themselves through external factors that impact an individual’s life 

Findings:

·      Children who had more control of their lives found more hidden drawings within the initial drawing and found the faster than children who did not have as much control 

·      Age and IQ only applied for girls within the study not boys 

·      No gender difference between control and performance

- Participants were infants ages 2 to 8 months old 

- Infants were placed in a small theatre and received several 3-second presentations of a pleasant audio-visual stimulus (e.g., a picture of a smiling infant, with the audio of Sesame Street theme song playing)

- During a learning phase, for half of the infants, the stimulus presentation took place when the infant moved their arm, indicating that the presentation was attached to a switch tied to the participants. The infants had control of their environment. 

- For the other half of the infants, the presentation occurred at random times. The infants did not have control over their environment. 

- In a later phase of the study, the presentation played at random times for both groups. No infants had control of their environment. 

 Findings:

 - During the learning phase, the contingent group expressed more happiness than the non-contingent group, which is consistent with prior studies 

- The study found there was more interest in the display from infants in the contingent group

- This means that infants who had more control over their environment, were more interested in the environment, therefore leading to more learning 

- During the second stage, infants who previously had control which was then taken away became angrier and frustrated. In a third relearning phase, these infants expressed more interest and happiness.

-          They can get guidance over what activities they do, but they would usually do this by personal choice 

-          Don’t receive homework 

-          Children still follow a curriculum that is hour by hour

-          It’s been found that the ability to choose improves memory 

-          It has also been found that of you allow children to have control they gain higher grades than other children their age.

-          Can be an issue due too the amount of materials needed for this method of teaching