Abstract:

A key component of behavioral change is human motivation. The founders of the Self-Determination Theory, R. Ryan and E. Deci, ranked motivation on a continuum from amotivation, to intrinsic motivation and external motivation. To be intrinsically motivated, one has to satisfy the psychological needs of competence, autonomy and relatedness. Competence refers to feeling confident and effective concerning what you are doing, and autonomy refers to being encouraged to have the freedom to decide how you carry out your activities. Relatedness refers to feeling cared for by others, caring for others, or thinking that you belong to a group that is important to you.
This study investigated the relationship between the perceived parenting style, the perceived teacher's teaching style, and the satisfaction of basic psychological needs in an educational context. Two parenting styles were analyzed separately for the mother and the father: the supportive autonomous style and the controlling parenting style.
The teacher's style was analyzed according to the dimensions of involvement, provision of structure and provision of autonomy support. The teachers' enthusiasm, with which they hold their class lessons, was also introduced.
The research included a large sample of school students from 5th to 12th grade, enrolled in one traditional school from Cluj-Napoca, Romania (N=331). All participants completed an online survey evaluating students’ fulfillment of their basic psychological needs regarding Romanian literature lessons, parenting and teaching style. Data was collected before the start of the pandemic with the goal of observing the evolution of the aforementioned needs and styles during the online education period.
Results showed that teacher involvement and teacher enthusiasm positively predict student autonomy and competence, while teacher provision of structure and teacher enthusiasm positively predict student relatedness. The outcome of this study also revealed that the mother's controlling style positively predicts child’s competence, while the father's controlling style negatively predicts child's need for competence in Romanian language classes.

Keywords:

Self-determination theory, basic psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, teaching style, teacher enthusiasm, parenting style.