The relationship between teachers’ autonomy support and students’ motivation, achievement and well-being

Teachers’ support is a key factor that influences students’ intrinsic motivation to learn, which according to Self-Determination Theory (SDT; [1]) is the most self-determined form of regulation towards studying. Intrinsic motivation refers behaviors which are perceived as interesting and enjoyable even in the absence of external contingences. SDT posits that intrinsic motivation is sustained by satisfaction of basic psychological needs, particularly by the need for autonomy. Autonomy concerns a sense of initiative and ownership in one’s actions, supported by experiences of interest and value. In the school context students’ autonomy refers to the need to experience a sense of volition and self-determination of their behavior at school. Teachers support students’ autonomy by taking their perspective, vitalizing inner motivational resources, providing explanatory rationales for requests and offering choice in school tasks. An autonomy supportive teaching style affects the students’ intrinsic motivation, leading multiple behavioural, cognitive, and affective benefits (e.g. academic achievement, engagement and well-being). Given these benefits, SDT researchers promoted teachers-focused interventions to improve educational environment in creating students’ psychological experience of having one’s autonomy supported [2]. The aims of this study is to encourage a reflection on the important role of teachers in supporting students’ self-determined behavior, highlighting the key role that the perceived autonomy of students plays in promoting positive outcomes at school. We hypothesized that teachers autonomy support is directly associated with higher levels of intrinsic motivation, achievement and subjective well-being, considered as the positive emotions that students experience during school time. The participants of the present study were 361 students from a middle school (grades 6-8; mean age=12.1 years; 52,6% male), located in an urban area in Lazio, Italy. Teacher support for autonomy was measured using the Italian version of the Learning Climate Questionnaire, composed by eight questions regarding teachers behaviors in class. To asses intrinsic motivation we administered the subscale Intrinsic motivation of the Italian version of Academic Motivation Scale, that consists in four questions about the reasons why students want to learn. Positive emotions were measured with the subscale Positive Emotions of the School Well-being Scale. Achievement consists in students’ self-reported grades in two subjects: Italian and Mathematics. A Structural Equation Modelling analysis was performed, that fitted the data quite well: x²=215 (df = 129), p< .001; TLI = .975; SRMR = .035; RMSEA = .043. Results show that teachers support for autonomy significantly predicted higher levels of intrinsic motivation (β=.60). Furthermore, the overall model explained 19% of the variance in academic achievement and 25% of the variance in positive emotions, underlining the importance of autonomy support. Results suggest that students’ autonomy support should be taken into account in educational practices. In Italy, the interventions based on SDT’s perspective in school domain are still limited. Future studies should implement interventions focused on the student’s autonomy support in order to improve teachers practices and approaches that best predict students outcomes.