Psychological need support as a predictor of intrinsic and external motivation: the mediational role of achievement goals

Abstract

The present research sought to integrate self-determination theory and the achievement goal approach to achievement motivation by examining achievement goals as mediators of the link between psychological need support and both intrinsic and external motivation. We found support for our proposed integration, as mastery-approach and performance-approach goals were documented as partial mediators of the links between autonomy and competence need support, on the one hand, and intrinsic and external motivation, on the other. Statistical evidence was not obtained for the mediational role of performance-avoidance goals. The findings are discussed in terms of the ways in which they enrich both the self-determination and achievement goal frameworks.

Keywords:

• Self-determination
• achievement goal
• motivation
• mediation
• integration

Notes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In the present study, only mastery-approach, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals are fully considered, because the internal consistency for mastery-avoidance goals (α = .50) was not acceptable in this sample.

2 The original questionnaire contains 12 items assessing how learning environments at the college level satisfy students’ needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. After a pilot study, one item was removed in the subscale of competence need support (‘In the courses, I am taught important theoretical knowledge’) because, in class, students are taught not only theoretical but also applied knowledge. Three more items were added to each of the three types of need support, which were consistent with the SDT conceptualization of need support (i.e. ‘I feel that my studies challenge me in a manner that corresponds to my skills and abilities’ was added for competence support; ‘My classes promote autonomous learning’ was added for autonomy support; and ‘The lecturers create a friendly and relaxed atmosphere’ was added for relatedness support). In a similar way, the original external and intrinsic motivation subscales contained three items, respectively. Based on the pilot study, two more items were added to intrinsic motivation (e.g. ‘During my studies, I am curious’) and three more were added to external motivation (e.g. ‘I am learning primarily to obtain an academic degree’). The items added were consistent with the SDT conceptualization of external and intrinsic motivation.

3 Given that the measurement errors were not corrected for these variables, the significance level of 0.01 rather than 0.05 was used for hypothesis testing.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by grants from the Research Institute of Moral Education at Nanjing Normal University, the Key Research Institute in Humanities and Social Sciences in Universities in China [No. DYS20170602]. This article was also supported within the framework of a subsidy by the Russian Academic Excellence Project ‘5-100’.