engleski

The role of basic psychological needs and intrinsic motivation in explaining students' goal orientation

Individuals' motivation and behavior in educational settings is explained by many theories, among which are self-determination and achievement goal theory. Studies show that satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs proposed by the self-determination theory fosters high quality motivation such as intrinsic motivation, which is associated with higher tendencies to increase one's competence without seeking to avoid difficult academic tasks. Because goal orientations, mastery approach and mastery avoidance goal, refer to different intentions or causes for a person's pursuit in an achievement situation, they result in different patterns of cognition, affect and behavior. Mastery approach goals are associated with a range of adaptive outcomes, one of them being high intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, mastery-avoidance goals are associated with a range of negative outcomes, one of them being low intrinsic motivation. Therefore, this research was conducted to examine the relationship between three basic psychological needs in educational context (autonomy, competence and relatedness) and goal orientations as well as the role of intrinsic motivation in this relationship. As a part of a larger study, 247 3rd year students of the Preschool Education Studies at The Faculty of Teacher Education of the University of Zagreb were examined using scales developed for the purpose of the study. The results show that 13.8% of mastery avoidant goal orientation can be explained by the basic psychological needs (autonomy and competence), but intrinsic motivation does not make additional contribution to the explanation of this goal orientation. In explaining mastery approach goal orientation, basic psychological needs (competence only) explain 3.8% of the variance, with intrinsic motivation explaining additional 12.7% in hierarchical regression analysis.

basic psychological needs ; intrinsic motivation ; achievement goal orientation

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