Give me freedom or see my motivation decline: Basic psychological needs and the development of students' learning goal orientation

The presented research aims to show that satisfaction and frustration of students' basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness is directly tied to the development of students' learning goal orientation. This assumption was investigated through a longitudinal survey study (N = 1059 German undergraduate students, assessment covering the first four semesters at university). Latent growth curve modeling showed that students' learning goal orientation declined over time, while students simultaneously experienced increasingly stronger autonomy frustration. Parallel-process modeling indicated stable associations between need satisfaction and students' learning goal orientation. Additional moderated cross-lagged panel models showed that feelings of autonomy and competence during the first semester predicted an increase in learning goal orientation over time (direct effect) and also increased the malleability of this goal orientation (moderation effect). This result pattern suggests that need satisfaction plays an important role in the development of a learning goal orientation.