Basic psychological needs of in-service EFL teachers in blended professional training: voices of teachers and learners

ABSTRACT

Basic Psychological Needs (BPN) in blended learning has become a crucial precursor in promoting the harmony of competence, relatedness and autonomy for both traditional and online learning approaches. This mixed study aims to investigate in-service teachers’ and learners’ perspectives of BPN fulfillment and its issues under the context of blended professional training. A total of 60 in-service teachers and 120 secondary school students from 24 provinces in Indonesia participated in the study. Construct validity of the questionnaire was established using exploratory factor analysis. Findings using the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test showed no significant differences between in-service teachers’ and learners’ perspectives of the in-service teachers’ BPN. Learners believed that the in-service teachers’ fulfillment of relatedness and competence was low in connecting to other people using IT, online care, online teachers’ adornment, and learning new skills. The interview with both groups of participants depicted that in some points, the learners perceived that their in-service teachers BPN of relatedness made them unsatisfied with low online care, empathy, and massive online tasks. Suggestion to harmonize these issues and their pedagogical implications for the second language (L2) curriculum and teacher training program in Indonesia and similar contexts were discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Basic psychological needs
• relatedness
• competence
• autonomy
• in-service teachers
• blended professional training

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yudhi Arifani

Dr. Yudhi Arifani is an associate professor of English Education at the Universitas Muhammadiyah Gresik, Indonesia. He received her Ph.D. degree on English Education in the State University of Malang in 2012. His research interests include EFL teacher professional development and technology-based language teaching and learning. He teaches at English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Gresik.

Ruruh Mindari

Dr. Ruruh Mindari received her Ph.D. degree on English Education in the State University of Malang in 2012. Her research interests include teaching English to young learners, language and culture, and teacher professional development. She teaches at English Department of Widya Mandala Catholic University, Surabaya, Indonesia.

Nur Hidayat

Nur Hidayat, M.Pd is a Ph.D. candidate at the Universitas Negeri Surabaya. His research interests include teacher professional development and technology-based teaching.

Awang Setiawan Wicaksono

Awang Setiawan Wicaksono, M.Psi is a senior lecturer at the Psychology Department Universitas Muhammadiyah Gresik. His research interests include cognitive psychology, scaffolding, and Autism Spectrum Disorder.