The relationships among psychological needs, autonomous motivation and learning outcomes in a secondary girls' school in Singapore

Abstract

The aims of the present study were to examine a) whether psychological need satisfaction and psychological need frustration predicted autonomous motivation; b) whether psychological need satisfaction and psychological need frustration (in terms of autonomy, competence and relatedness) predicted the cognitive and affective learning outcomes and c) whether autonomous motivation mediated the relationship between psychological need satisfaction and psychological need frustration with the learning outcomes. <br><br> 287 fourteen-year old girls from the Year Three cohort in an all-girl school participated in a self-report online questionnaire. The results from this study showed that a) psychological need satisfaction positively predicted autonomous motivation while psychological need frustration negatively predicted autonomous motivation; b) psychological need satisfaction positively predicted the cognitive and affective learning outcomes while psychological need frustration negatively predicted the cognitive and affective learning outcomes; and c) autonomous motivation was a partial mediator between psychological need satisfaction and the learning outcomes in terms of metacognitive self-regulation, learning enjoyment and vitality, whereas autonomous motivation was a partial mediator between psychological need frustration and the learning outcomes in terms of learning enjoyment and vitality but not metacognitive selfregulation. <br><br> The practical implications from this study were for practitioners to consider using an autonomy-supportive classroom approach to promote students’ psychological need satisfaction and autonomous motivation to enhance students’ learning outcomes.