Abstract:

In education system that aims at nurturing creative, civic, critical-minded people the role of the teacher is more complex, demanding greater variety didactic and technological competences as well as flexibility in order to be inspiring and empowering, rather than controlling and pressing. Therefore, it is essential to understand what contextual and personal factors contribute to teachers’ classroom (de)motivating style. For that purpose, two theoretical approaches are used in this study. Self-Determination theory (SDT) offers classification of teachers’ (de)motivating styles relating them with satisfaction and frustration of students’ basic psychological needs. In addition, SDT suggests that teachers’ need satisfaction and frustration is related to their choice of (de)motivating teaching strategies. Need satisfaction and frustration is context dependent. The goal theory offers mastery and performance school goal orientation as contextual factors. Few previous studies suggest that consonance between teachers’ personal and school values is another contextual factor related to teachers’ need satisfaction and frustration (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2011). The goal of the current study is to investigate the predictive value of school goal structure and value consonance for classroom (de)motivating styles controlling for teachers’ sociodemographic characteristics (gender, school subject, grade, class size, teaching experience) and teachers’ basic psychological needs satisfaction and frustration.

Method:
Data from the pilot study of the project “Towards the effective teaching: the evaluation of (de)motivating teaching strategies and their effects on students’ using Circumplex model” was used for this analysis. 114 (105 women and 9 men) 5 –12 grade teachers from 37 different areas in Lithuania participated. 4 (de)motivating teaching styles (autonomy support, structure, control, chaos) were evaluated using Situations in School questionnaire (Aelterman et al., 2018). Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale (BPNSNF), Chen et al., 2015) was used to evaluate teachers’ need satisfaction and frustration. Perceptions of the School Goal Structure for Students Teacher Scale (Midgley et al., 2000) was used to evaluate the perceived school goal structure by teachers. Value consonance was evaluated by 3 items created by authors (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2011). Four hierarchical multiple regression analyses were performed, with four (de)motivating teaching styles as dependent variables. For each model the sociodemographic variables were entered at step one, basic needs satisfaction and frustration - at step two, school goal structure and value consonance were entered at step three.

Results:
The predictive models explained from 13% to 23% variation of (de)motivating teaching styles. Autonomy supportive teaching style was predicted by teachers’ basic psychological need satisfaction and perceived mastery goal structure. Structuring teaching style was predicted by mastery goal structure, teachers’ basic psychological need satisfaction and frustration and teaching experience. Controlling teaching style was predicted by performance goal structure, teachers’ basic psychological need frustration, class size, school subject and teachers’ gender. Chaotic teaching style was predicted by mastery goal structure and teachers’ basic psychological need frustration.

Keywords:

Basic psychological needs, (de)motivating teaching style, school goal structure, teachers.