engleski

Autonomy support and basic need satisfaction among student teachers

This research is the initial phase of the larger project on professional role development of student teachers during their pre-service education. The focus of the project is on the interplay of various motivational determinants of professional role development. Current research has underlined the need to investigate the potential changes in motivation of prospective teachers during the course of their studies (e.g. Malmberg, 2006). Self-determination theory by Deci and Ryan (Deci et al., 1991) served as theoretical framework for this study, providing the concepts of autonomy support and basic needs satisfaction. There is substantial evidence that autonomy support is related to a number of positive outcomes in educational settings (e.g. Black & Deci, 2000). The aim of this study was to determine the relation of teacher students' assessment of the autonomy support they receive from their teachers and anticipated satisfaction of basic needs at their future work, both at the very beginning of their studies (1st year) and at the final year of the studies. We hypothesized that higher autonomy support perceived during the studies would enhance the expectancies of the prospective teachers related to the needs satisfaction at their future work. The sample included 56 1st year student teachers and 58 4th year student teachers and following instruments were used: The Learning Climate Questionnaire (Williams & Deci, 1996), and The Basic Psychological Need at Work Scale (Deci et al., 2001). Results in general reveal very moderate perceived autonomy support. Perception of basic needs satisfaction indicates that students’ expectancies are rather high. Interestingly, entrance year students perceive greater autonomy support than final year students. There are no differences between expected basic needs satisfaction at future work with regard to the year of study. According to the results on their perception of autonomy support from their teachers students were (for the purposes of further analysis) grouped into two categories: a) lower autonomy support and b) higher autonomy support. There is no difference between 1st year students’ expectancy of needs satisfaction at future work with regard to perceived level of autonomy. However, the difference emerges at the 4th year – those students who perceive higher level of autonomy support anticipate better needs satisfaction at their future work compared to students who perceive lower level of autonomy support. The study reveals that 1st year students, with less experience in pre-service training, perceive more autonomy support than students close to the end of their pre-service educational cycle. This finding indicates a potential decline in perceived autonomy support over the course of pre-service education, with possible negative effects on prospective teachers' motivation. Furthermore, this research provided some evidence that the positive relation between perceived autonomy support and anticipated basic needs satisfaction at future work is formed over the course of pre-service education, with more accumulated experience. The evidence obtained in this study therefore provided some hypotheses that will be further investigated using a longitudinal research design.

professional role development of student teachers; autonomy support; expected needs satisfaction at work

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