A longitudinal study investigating the role of basic psychological needs and autonomous motivation in explaining students’ achievement and dropout from teacher education

Abstract

This pre-registered longitudinal study investigated the relations between basic psychological need satisfaction and motivational quality and objective measures of achievement and dropout, to extend principles of self-determination theory in the classroom to modelling of psychological need satisfaction alongside long-term objective academic outcomes. Participants were first-year and fourth-year student teachers in Norway, a demographic known for having high attrition rates. Unexpectedly, we found that autonomous motivation and amotivation were negatively related with achievement, whereas gender (males) and previous grades were positively related with it. Controlled motivation and gender (males) was, conversely, positively related with remaining on the study program. As expected, amotivation was related with dropout. Finally, the effect of autonomous motivation on remaining in education was mediated by basic psychological needs, suggesting that autonomous motivation indirectly reduces dropout through the satisfaction of the basic needs. We discuss the limitations of our study and implications for future research.