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Teachers’ Conditional Regard and Students’ Need Satisfaction and Agentic Engagement: A Multilevel Motivation Mediation Model

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Abstract

Teachers’ conditional positive regard and conditional negative regard are common motivational techniques in the classroom. This study investigated their respective effects on adolescent students’ agentic engagement, while considering students’ basic psychological needs for autonomy and relatedness as potential mediators. Data collected from 30 teachers and 651 7th to 10th graders (52% female) were used to test a multilevel mediation model. The results indicated that teachers’ conditional negative regard undermined students’ agentic engagement by frustrating both of their autonomy and relatedness needs. Teachers’ conditional positive regard thwarted students’ sense of autonomy, which consequently undermined their agentic engagement. The findings are discussed in terms of conditional positive and negative regard as undesirable classroom motivational practices and the mechanisms through which they operate. The discussion also notes the importance of investigating contextual factors at the classroom level.

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Authors’ Contributions

RC conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, and drafted the manuscript; AM conceived of the study and helped to draft the manuscript; AS participated in the design and coordination of the study and performed the measurement; GR conceived of the study and helped to draft the manuscript; YKM conceived of the study, participated in its design, performed the statistical analyses and coordination, and drafted the manuscript.

Data Sharing and Declaration

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, P.O. Box 167, 46150, Herzliya, Israel

    Rinat Cohen

  2. School of Education, Bar Ilan University, 5290002, Ramat Gan, Israel

    Anat Moed

  3. Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, P.O. Box 167, 46150, Herzliya, Israel

    Anat Shoshani

  4. School of Education, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653, 8410501, Beer-Sheva, Israel

    Guy Roth

  5. Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, P.O. Box 167, 46150, Herzliya, Israel

    Yaniv Kanat-Maymon

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  1. Rinat Cohen
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  2. Anat Moed
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  3. Anat Shoshani
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  4. Guy Roth
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  5. Yaniv Kanat-Maymon
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yaniv Kanat-Maymon.

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Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were approved by the ethical standards of the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center Academic Ethics Committee and the Israeli Ministry of Education and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.

Informed Consent

All the participants provided the informed consent. Students’ parents gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The protocol was approved by the Israeli Ministry of Education’s ethics committee and the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center Academic Ethics Committee.

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Cohen, R., Moed, A., Shoshani, A. et al. Teachers’ Conditional Regard and Students’ Need Satisfaction and Agentic Engagement: A Multilevel Motivation Mediation Model. J Youth Adolescence 49, 790–803 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01114-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01114-y

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