Advancing the Conceptualization and Measurement of Psychological Need States in Education Settings: The unique role of psychological need unfulfillment

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Thomas, Jérémy | Huyghebaert-Zouaghi, Tiphaine | Badré, Simon | Jungert, Tomas | Berjot, Sophie

Edité par CCSD -

International audience. Building upon recent studies based on Self-Determination Theory, we aimed to investigate whether psychological need unfulfillment constitutes a distinct need state for students (when tested alongside need satisfaction and frustration) and to test the validity of a tripartite measure of these need states in education settings (Psychological Need States in Education-Scale, PNSE-S). Results from two studies conducted among French high school (Study 1; N = 473) and higher education students (Study 2; N = 1143) provided support for the unfulfillment of the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness to be modeled as a distinct need state relative to the satisfaction and frustration of those three needs. Results also supported the construct validity of the 35-item PNSE-S in both samples. Moreover, results supported the criterion-related validity of the PNSE-S by indicating that these distinctive need states had well-differentiated effects on a wide array of outcomes of importance for students: feelings of inadequacy, emotional exhaustion, physical fatigue, cognitive weariness, psychological disengagement from distinct targets (other students, teachers and studies), and dropout intentions. This research therefore offers a multidimensional instrument allowing to simultaneously assess students’ need satisfaction, frustration, and unfulfillment. It also shows psychological need unfulfillment to be key in understanding students’ maladaptive functioning.

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