Students' motivational experiences across profiles of perceived need-supportive and need-thwarting teaching behaviors in physical education

Background: Consistent with self-determination theory (SDT), teachers may differ in the motivating style used to motivate students in physical education (PE). When relying on need-supportive behaviors, teachers attempt to provide students with opportunities for choices and initiative (autonomy support), valuable information and feedback (competence support), and an emotional and affective environment (relatedness support). Alternatively, teachers relying on need-thwarting behaviors tend to adopt a controlling language (autonomy thwarting), unclear goals toward the task (competence thwarting), and cold links with students (relatedness thwarting). While competence, autonomy, and relatedness supportive and thwarting behaviors are theoretically distinct in the instructional practice, every teaching behavior may co-occur to different degrees. Grounded in SDT, the only existing person-centered study in PE showed that PE teachers' autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching behaviors can be combined through the students' eyes, being associated with different motivational outcomes. Purpose: Adopting a person-centered approach, this research aimed to extend previous knowledge by examining how different combinations of students' perceptions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness supportive and thwarting teaching behaviors are associated with students' need satisfaction, need frustration, and motivation in PE. Method: A sample of 478 middle school students (53.97% girls) participated in the study. First, a two-step cluster analysis using autonomy, competence, and relatedness supportive and thwarting behaviors was run to identify different motivating teaching profiles. Subsequently, a multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted to examine differences between the retained clusters and students' need-based experiences and motivational regulations. Results: Two of these profiles were characterized by the dominant presence either of need-supportive (i.e. 'high need-support - low need-thwarting') or need-thwarting behaviors (i.e. 'low need-support - high need-thwarting'), while they were found to be similarly present in the two remaining profiles (i.e. 'moderate need-support - need-thwarting', and 'moderate need-support - high need-thwarting'). The 'high need-support - low need-thwarting' profile obtained the highest scores on need satisfaction and autonomous forms of motivation, accompanied by the lowest levels of need frustration and amotivation. The 'moderate need-support - need-thwarting' profile reflected low scores on need frustration, introjected and external regulation, and amotivation. The 'moderate need-support - need-thwarting' and the 'low need-support - high need-thwarting' profiles showed the highest scores on need frustration, introjected and external regulation, and amotivation. Conclusions: This research underscores that teachers may combine need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviors in their instructional practice. Results revealed that the 'high need-support - low need-thwarting' profile showed the most optimal outcomes, while the 'low need-support - high need thwarting' profile yielded the least optimal outcomes. Given that the 'high need-support - low need-thwarting' profile showed a more optimal pattern of outcomes than the 'moderate need-support - high need-thwarting' profile and the 'moderate need-support - need-thwarting', results suggest that students' perception of need-thwarting teaching behaviors is detrimental even when the instructor is additionally perceived to be need-supportive. PE teachers are recommended not only to develop a motivating teaching style characterized by high levels of need-supportive behaviors, but also to avoid need-thwarting behaviors in their instructional practice, in order to enhance students' motivational experiences.