The Architecture of Daring: A Non-Giving Pedagogy for Fostering Student Agency in Primary Education

Background: This study addresses the persistent challenge of cultivating intrinsic motivation within traditional pedagogical frameworks. It introduces and evaluates "non-giving pedagogy," an approach where the educator architects a self-regulating learning ecosystem rather than managing student behavior. Methods: Employing a mixed-methods, quasi-experimental design, we analyzed 1.5 million task-completion records from primary school students (ages 6–10) over three academic years. Logistic regression was used to identify behavioral predictors of academic success in subsequent tournaments. Findings: The analysis revealed that the most powerful predictor of success was not error minimization but coin-earning speed—a measure of strategic, error-free mastery, with an Odds Ratio reaching up to 23.2 for low-performing students. Qualitative data triangulated these findings, linking the metric to student agency and sustained engagement. Contribution: This work makes a novel contribution to Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and the Learning Sciences by demonstrating a scalable, environmental model that structurally embeds support for autonomy and competence. It offers a compelling, empirically-validated alternative to traditional teacher-focused interventions.