Need Support and Need Thwarting: A Meta-Analysis of Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness Supportive and Thwarting Behaviors in Student Populations
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In this meta-analysis, we review the nomological networks of six need-supportive and need-thwarting categories, as defined by self-determination theory (SDT), and as they apply to students in educational contexts. We conducted a synthesis of 8693 correlations from 637 samples ( N = 388,912). A total of 72 covariates were examined, resulting in 183 meta-analytic effects reported. Results indicate that teachers and parents who experience psychological need satisfaction and well-being are seen as more supportive. Supportive teacher behaviors correlated positively with a range of desired student outcomes, including performance, engagement, and well-being. Thwarting behaviors tended to display the opposite pattern. Our results are consistent with the theoretical expectations of SDT, yet questions remain concerning the incremental validity of these constructs. We highlight the need for further research on (a) factors that cause teachers to provide support and (b) the specific behaviors within each category to distinguish these categories and increase practical utility.
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Research on relatedness and competence has focused on improving the psychological needs satisfaction of higher education students, especially in online education.
“research on these variables has focused on improving the psychological needs satisfaction of higher education students, especially in online education [24], [25], [26].”
From Mapping the Research Landscape: A Comprehensive Bibliometric Analysis of Self-Determination Theory in Higher Education (2024) · cites this paper as [24]
The Need-Supportive Behaviors section says competence- and relatedness-supportive strategies are likely to satisfy students’ corresponding psychological needs. It does not establish that this research has focused on higher education students, especially in online education; the paper discusses student populations more broadly. The supplied passages have no page numbers. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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Cites
The "what" and "why" of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior
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“Central to the theory are the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which, when satisfied, lead to optimal human functioning (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020).”
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“We used the SDT causal sequence to categorize covariates as antecedents or outcomes (see Deci et al., 2017; Ng et al., 2012; Ryan & Deci, 2017 for overviews).”
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“Within SDT, autonomy-thwarting behaviors are categorized as distinct from autonomy-supportive behaviors, creating what is often referred to as a dual-process model including “bright” and “dark” pathways to motivation and associated outcomes (Vansteenkiste et al., 2020).”
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“It may be that structure needs to be accompanied by autonomy support to be helpful (Jang et al., 2010), or alternately other moderating factors may be at play.”
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“Based on existing work (Gillison et al., 2019; Grolnick et al., 2002; Ntoumanis et al., 2021; Reeve, 2012), we position student individual differences such as causality orientations, personality, as well as demographics (age and socio-economic status) as antecedents of support/thwart-ing…”
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Student Motivation and Associated Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis From Self-Determination Theory
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“…who themselves experience satisfaction for basic psychological needs (and personal well-being) are more likely to support the basic psychological needs of followers (Aelterman et al., 2014; Reeve & Cheon, 2021), with the calculated correlation in this study being of moderate to strong magnitude.”
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Lin, C., Zhang, Y., Wang, L., & Wu, J. (2024) · Proceedings of the 2024 2nd International Conference on Information Education and Artificial Intelligence · doi:10.1145/3724504.3724576
- Authors
- Howard, J. L., Slemp, G. R., & Wang, X.
- Affiliations
- Monash University (AU)
- The University of Melbourne (AU)
- Renmin University of China (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Howard, Joshua L.
- Venue
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2024-01-30
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 1552-1573
- ISSN
- 0146-1672 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-7433
- PMC
- PMC12276404
- OpenAlex
- W4391390338
- Cited by
- 114
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2026: 73 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 9
- FWCI
- 9.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Monash University Research Portal (Monash University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Minerva Access (University of Melbourne) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Motivation and Self-Concept in Sports
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Education, Achievement, and Giftedness
- Social Sciences › Education › Early Childhood Education and Development
- Keywords
- self-determination theory, autonomy support, competence support, relatedness support, psychological need satisfaction, teacher behavior, parental behavior, student well-being, student engagement, student performance, incremental validity, nomological network
- MeSH terms
- School Teachers, Humans, Parents, Personal Satisfaction, Social Support, Students, Personal Autonomy
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