Satisfaction of teachers' need for autonomy and their strategies of classroom discipline

Are Autonomously Motivated University Instructors More Autonomy-Supportive Teachers?

“…Upon initial inspection, we removed one of the items as it was only weakly correlated with the other items and exploratory factor analysis indicated low factor loadings. Similar to Tadic (2015), the two factors that accounted for 49 % of the variation corresponded to "freedom to make teaching decisions" (TNAS-Free, 6 items) and "participation in collective decisions" (TNAS-Participate 4 items).…”

“…Because the BPN at Work survey is not specific to teaching, we also included an additional measure of BPN satisfaction that has been adapted from a previous study (Johnston & Finney, 2010) to the teaching work environment. The TNAS measures perceived pressures and constraints teachers experienced in school (TNAS; Tadic, 2015). We chose this questionnaire because it included two factors that could easily be adapted to reflect two different and important aspects of work-place autonomy in a university.…”

“…Adapted from: Tadic (2015) Instructions: In front of you is a series of statements related to your job, relationships in the collective and teaching of undergraduate students. Please read each statement carefully, consider each of them and express the extent to which you agree with each statement.…”

“…By fostering inner motivations to learn, autonomy-supportive teachers help engender autonomously-motivated students who have higher academic performance, engagement, persistence, creativity and well-being (Black & Deci, 2000;Nunez, Fernandez, Leon, & Grijalvo, 2015;Pulfrey, Buchs, & Butera, 2011;Reeve, 2006;Sheldon & Krieger, 2014;Vansteenkiste, Lens, & Deci, 2006). Although past research on the characteristics of the teacher and the work environments in schools (Nunez et al, 2015;Pelletier, Seguin-Levesque, & Legault, 2002;Reeve et al, 1999;Tadic, 2015) identified potential antecedents of these two contrasting teaching styles, such research on the antecedents of autonomy-supportive teaching has not been extended to universities. Thus, the goal of this study is to determine which motivational characteristics influence university instructors to be more autonomy-supportive in their teaching.…”

“…Past SDT studies in schools (Pelletier et al, 2002;Pelletier & Sharp, 2009;Roth, Assor, Kanat-Maymon, & Kaplan, 2007) suggest that work environments can affect autonomous motivation in teachers (Stupnisky, Hall, Daniels, & Mensah, 2017) by supporting or thwarting the basic psychological needs (BPN) for autonomy (feeling able to make meaningful choices and have freedom in thought), relatedness (feeling connection to people and place), and competence (feeling capable and confident in the ability to carry out tasks) (Deci et al, 2001;Ryan & Deci, 2017). Whether or not teachers in schools feel autonomously motivated to teach depends on factors such as perceived pressures and constraints at work (e.g., concerns relating to pressures from students to adjust grading, or pressures from colleagues and administrators) (Pelletier et al, 2002;Taylor, Ntoumanis, & Standage, 2008) as well as feelings of autonomy with respect to teaching decisions such as being able to decide on course content or teaching styles (Tadic, 2015;Taylor et al, 2008). In comparison to such research in primary or secondary schools, and the extensive research on motivations for faculty to engage in research (Goodwin & Sauer, 1995;Hardré et al, 2007;Hardré, Beesley, Miller, & Pace, 2011), there is a paucity of studies on autonomous motivation towards teaching among university instructors (Burgess & Ramsey-Stewart, 2015).…”