Self-Determination Theory and the Happiness and Academic Achievement of Students at a Women's University

This study examines the extent to which self-determination theory (SDT) explains the academic achievement and mental well-being of students at a women's university in Japan. According to SDT, if students meet their basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness), they will have more internalized motivation, which in turn will lead them to perform better. However, this study does not find that SDT fully applies to its respondents, who are all college students at a women's university. Students who obtain autonomy support from their parents meet their basic psychological needs and feel that they are competent, which is in line with the theory. In contrast to the theory, however, high perceived competence does not bring more internalized motivation to the students in this study. Students with high perceived competence levels tend to act out of a sense of obligation (external motivation) or to please others (introjected motivation) rather than based on their values (identified motivation) or interests (intrinsic motivation). Moreover, as opposed to SDT, the level of internalized motivation, measured by the relative autonomy index (RAI), has no statistically significant impact on either the academic achievement or the happiness of the students in this study. Instead of self-motivation (which is a late-stage variable in SDT), this study finds that autonomy support from parents and the basic psychological need satisfaction (BPNS) of students (which are early-stage variables in SDT) have a statistically significant impact on both the grades and the happiness of students.