Autonomy support in higher education: a key strategy for the well-being of university students

Self-determination theory

The SDT postulates that people have a natural inclination to experience a sense of choice and psychological freedom regarding their thinking and actions (Deci, 2004; Ryan & Deci, 2017) or, in other words, the tendency towards autonomous motivation. SDT starts from the fact that motivation unfolds in a continuum of processes that go from demotivation to autonomous motivation, passing through introjected motivation and integrated motivation. On this continuum, amotivation, referring to the absence of motivation, is at the opposite end of autonomous motivation, which is self-determined in nature. In the middle is extrinsic motivation, less self-determined, which oscillates between four expressions: external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, and integrated regulation (Ryan & Deci, 2020). Focusing on autonomous motivation means starting from the natural tendency and makes it possible to promote it more effectively (Weidinger et al., 2016).

On the other hand, the SDT postulates the existence of three basic psychological needs (BPN): autonomy, competence and relationship with others, determinants for motivation and well-being (Šakan et al., 2020). Autonomy implies volitional aspects and the disposition of behavior based on activities oriented with the integrated sense of self and in which people perceive that they have the possibility of choice and some control over the consequences; competence is defined as the perception of feeling capable when carrying out their tasks; and the relationship with others, refers to the need of people to be meaningfully involved with others and to feel part of a group (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Satisfying these BPN is a necessary condition for the motivation “boosting” process to be successful (Ryan & Deci, 2020).

Based on the above, the SDT proposes that the provision of social resources by personal networks, through an interpersonal style of autonomy support, is a predictor of BPN satisfaction (Rocchi et al., 2017; Ryan & Deci, 2000), which in turn is a predictor of autonomous motivation. Specifically, the interpersonal style of autonomy support is positioned as a central social trigger for the development of self-determined motivation in students (Zamzami & Corinne, 2019) and as a key element for academic success (Leenknecht et al., 2017), well-being and mental health (Dasinger & Gibson, 2022).

When the BPN are satisfied, a more autonomous motivation is promoted and, consequently, positive effects are achieved (Orsini et al., 2018). Thus, although the SDT maintains that motivation is by nature a process that comes from within, it also affirms that it can be enhanced from contexts that facilitate the satisfaction of the BPN.

Social triggers, autonomous motivation and teacher’s interpersonal style of autonomy support

Faced with the challenge of SDT to understand human behavior from the influences of the context (Deci & Ryan, 2008), the different motivational styles of the figures that exert some influence on other people constitute key social triggers for the satisfaction of psychological needs and, consequently, for motivation and the effects derived from it (Haerens et al., 2015).

In the educational context, the way in which teachers interact with their students constitutes a central component in SDT, insofar as the interpersonal style they adopt can influence student motivation, oscillating between a more supportive one or a more frustrating one for their BPN. When these are met, students report more motivation and engagement (Orsini et al., 2018; Patall et al., 2018) and are more likely to deeply process learning material, performing better (Jang et al., 2016), higher well-being (Gillet et al., 2019), higher educational aspirations, and lower levels of academic dropout (Ketonen et al., 2019). When teachers support students' expression and pursuit of their personal interests and goals, they become more engaged in their learning process (Bronson, 2016; Reeve & Shin, 2020).

Through their behavior, teachers can promote positive and adaptive behaviors in their students. When adopting an autonomy-supportive motivational style, students have more opportunities to take initiative and play a leadership role (Vermote et al., 2020), as they catalyze greater autonomous motivation, curiosity, and a desire to challenge (Ryan & Deci, 2000), achieving the satisfaction of their BPN and consequently developing greater autonomous motivation (Frielink et al., 2018), a key factor for academic success and well-being (Depasque & Tricomi, 2015; Tahrekhani & Sadeghian, 2015). In this way, with the satisfaction of the BPN of the students, the teachers make possible the choice, the perception of competence and the relationship with others (Soenens et al., 2018).

When, on the contrary, teachers adopt a controlling style, based on pressure on students, which does not enhance the satisfaction of their BPN, an increase in demotivation is observed (Martinek et al., 2020) and can lead to a action oriented by fear of punishment or shame (Leenknecht et al., 2017), which is associated with a lack of commitment (Jang et al., 2016), loss of initiative and less learning (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

Personal triggers – mental health

Just as the teacher is a social trigger that can promote quality motivation, the individual characteristics of students can also promote or hinder their motivation. Recent works highlight the role of non-cognitive traits in the educational setting on motivational processes; such as the temperamental, attitudinal and motivational characteristics of the student (Fomunyam & Mnisi, 2017). These personal variables of the students interact with the teacher’s interpersonal style and must be taken into account, insofar as they can improve their own motivation, achievement and well-being (Borae & Kim, 2017; Cortez et al., 2019; Nonaillada, 2019; Seong-Lee & Chen-Hsieh, 2019).

Many first-year college students experience stressors that affect their adjustment and well-being (Samuel & Kamenetsky, 2022). About a fifth suffer from some mental disorder (Dessauvagie et al., 2022). The transition to university is a stage of constant psychosocial and academic changes, in which the appearance of anxious and depressive symptoms is common (Sit et al., 2022), and is added to the aggravation of previous mental health problems (Hernández-Torrano et al., 2020), due to the developmental, academic, occupational, and social challenges they face.

University students present high rates of mental health problems (Limone & Toto, 2022). Depression is one of the most common in this population (Porter, 2018; Ruiz-Hernández et al., 2022), and constitutes one of the personal factors that plays a relevant role in affecting their well-being, which compromises their daily functioning and that it hinders the development of their academic career (Levine et al., 2022), to the point that up to 42.7% of students felt too depressed to function regularly (Keeler et al., 2021).

For this reason, it is particularly important to be attentive to depressive symptoms, since it is associated with other problems such as suicide, addiction and eating disorders. In particular, 20% of college students, adolescents, and young adults in the United States had suicidal tendencies for the year 2018, constituting the group with the highest percentage in the United States (Limone & Toto, 2022).

Depressive symptoms among college students are higher than in the adult population and higher than their non-college peers (Chen et al., 2013). This problem even persists throughout the years of their academic training to the point that 60% of the students who indicated a mental health problem at the beginning of their career reported maintaining it two years later (Zivin et al., 2009). The most common depressive symptoms present as heightened negative affect, anhedonia, weight loss or gain, motor retardation, concentration problems, insomnia, restlessness, agitation, and feelings of worthlessness (Levine et al., 2022).

SDT offers a key to the analysis, based on the fact that BPN are associated with motivational regulation and, consequently, with mental health (Teuber et al., 2021). In this direction, various studies suggest that the negative affect and frustration of BPN contribute to the development of depressive symptoms (Ryan & Deci, 2017; Šakan et al., 2020; Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013), especially among younger students (Shek et al., 2022). Furthermore, negative affect, along with other variables such as sensitivity to anxiety, emotional regulation, tolerance for uncertainty, or perfectionism, could be at the base of numerous psychopathological disorders, especially emotional disorders (Ferrer et al., 2018; Pineda, 2018; Pineda et al., 2018).

However, just as the frustration of BPN is a consistent predictor of both negative affect and depressive symptoms over time (Levine et al., 2022; Šakan et al., 2020), their satisfaction, based on the implementation of a teacher’s interpersonal style that supports autonomy is a predictor of greater autonomous motivation and well-being (Gillet et al., 2019).

In this framework, although the damping effect on depression of this interpersonal style has already been investigated in primary and secondary school students (Zhang et al., 2022), it is necessary to analyze it with university students. On the other hand, although there is a very important precedent on the (negative) correlations between autonomy with respect to depression, anxiety and somatic symptoms (Sheikholeslamia & Arab-Moghaddama, 2010), it is necessary to update the findings in the present time and context.

The present study, aware of the importance of the role of the teacher in academic success (Adi Badiozaman et al., 2019; Langdon et al., 2017), and in the mental health of higher education students, aims to examine the relationships between interpersonal style of teacher autonomy support, BPN satisfaction, autonomous motivation and depressive symptoms of a group of university students, through a structural regression model.

Ethics

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The study was presented and approved by the ETHICS AND INTEGRITY COMMITTEE IN RESEARCH, VICE-RECTORATE FOR RESEARCH AND TRANSFER - MIGUEL HERNÁNDEZ UNIVERSITY OF ELCHE (approval number: DPS.DPS.230623. The participants agreed to be part of the study and gave their written informed consent. Everyone completed the questionnaires, willingly and anonymously to be able to respond honestly and sincerely.

Participants

The sample was made up of 356 Spanish university students, 237 of whom were boys (66.60%) from different grades and courses at a Spanish university, aged between 17 and 57 (M = 20.83; SD = 3.44). In general, coming from middle socioeconomic strata. They were selected through intentional sampling, taking into account the availability of teachers at the time of administration of the instruments. Second semester students were not included.

Measures

The present study involves the use of questionnaires that have been validated by previous studies. Below in the description of each measure is the study citation and URL. It is also included in the references section.

Autonomy support. To measure the interpersonal style of autonomy support perceived by Higher Education students from their teacher, the Moreno-Murcia et al. Autonomy Support Scale (EAA) was used (Moreno-Murcia et al., 2019). It consists of 12 items (e.g. “Provides explanations that help us understand the personal utility of carrying out said activity”) and the scale begins with an introductory heading such as: “My teacher in class…”. This is rated on a Likert scale from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree). The reliability with the present sample, measured with the alpha and omega indices have been.94 and.94 respectively.

Basic psychological needs. The Spanish version of the Échelle de Satisfacción des Besoins Psychologiques in the educational context (León et al., 2011) by Gillet et al. (2008) was used. The scale was preceded by the statement “In my class…” and made up of 15 items referring to competence (e.g. “I have the feeling of doing things well”), to autonomy (e.g. “I generally feel free to express my opinions”), and to the relationship with others (e.g. “I feel good with the people with whom I relate”). The responses were established on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree). The internal consistency in this sample, measured with the alpha and omega indices, have been .93 and .93 for competence, .92 and 92 for autonomy, and .93 and .92 for the dimension of relationship with others.

Autonomous motivation. To measure student motivation, the intrinsic motivation subscales (knowledge, achievement, and stimulant) and identified motivation of the version translated and validated into Spanish by Núñez, Martín-Albo et al. (2005) from the Échelle de Motivation en Éducation (EME) (Vallerand et al., 1989) were used. The dimensions are made up of four items each (e.g. “For the pleasure I feel by expanding my knowledge on topics that interest me”). It is preceded by the phrase “Why do you study this subject?” and the responses are collected on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (Totally disagree) to 7 (Totally agree). The internal consistency of the scales applied in this sample, measured with the alpha and omega indices respectively, have been .92 and .92 for knowledge, .92 and .92 for achievement, .95 and .96 for the stimulating dimension and .81 and .79 for the identified motivation.

Depression. To measure the depressive symptoms of the students, the PHQ-4 questionnaire (Kroenke et al., 2009) was applied. The PHQ-4 is a brief, four-item Emotional Disturbance Symptom Assessment Instrument designed for use in clinical and research settings where rapid and efficient symptom assessment is required. The PHQ-4 assesses the frequency and severity of symptoms of depression and anxiety in the last two weeks, using a response scale of 0 to 3 (0 = Never, 1 = Several days, 2 = More than half of days, 3 = Almost every day). The first two items of the PHQ-4 assess the presence and severity of depressive symptoms, including sadness and lack of interest or pleasure in activities. The last two items assess the presence and severity of anxiety symptoms, including excessive worry and difficulty relaxing. The PHQ-4 has proven to be a useful and reliable tool for the assessment of depressive and anxiety symptoms in various clinical and community settings, and its short length makes it ideal for use in settings with limited time and resources (Cano-Vindel et al., 2018). Internal consistency with the present sample has been .76 for Cronbach's alpha and .77 for McDonald's omega.

Procedure

The present research has the approval of the Human Research Committee of the corresponding University, with authorization code DPS.DPS.230623 (details masked for the review process). After sharing with the Academic Department management, the teachers involved were contacted to inform them of the objective of the research and request their collaboration so that students could fill out the questionnaires in their class time. To guarantee a greater number of participants, the questionnaires were mostly administered in practical classes. The application was not made in the same subject, since none is repeated throughout the different levels of the study plan. The objective of the study and how to fill in the questionnaires were explained to them in a generic way, resolving any possible doubts that might arise during the process. In particular, the instruction was given to answer the questionnaires, not having in mind a specific subject, but rather their general experience in relation to the development of those they have taken throughout their university education. Although initially the sample was made up of more students, responses with outlier values occurred in 32 participants and it was decided to eliminate them. Once this was done, the participants agreed to be part of the study and gave their written informed consent. Everyone completed the questionnaires, willingly and anonymously to be able to respond honestly and sincerely. The time required for its completion was approximately 20 minutes.

Descriptive and correlation analysis of all variables

This section presents the results of the descriptive and correlation analysis of the data, as well as the analysis for skewness and multivariate kurtosis. The descriptive and correlation analysis of the variables has been reflected in Table 1. Regarding the results of the Mardia test, a b1p value of 17.27 was found, indicating a positive multivariate asymmetry in the data. This result is supported by the asymmetry measure, which obtained a value of 1022.09 (p < .001). In addition, the measure of asymmetry of small samples obtained a value of 1032.47 (p < .001). These results indicate that the data present a strong positive skewness in multiple dimensions. On the other hand, the value of b2p was 119.61, which suggests a positive multivariate kurtosis in the data. The kurtosis measure obtained a value of 13.8 (p < .001), which indicates a greater concentration of data around the mean, compared to the normal distribution.

Structural regression model

An analysis was carried out with the structural equation model using the DWLS (Diagonally Weighted Least Squares) estimation method, as the most robust method to the violation of the normality assumption (Flora & Curran, 2004). The results indicate that the model adequately fits the observed data, according to the Chi-square goodness-of-fit test statistic (χ² = 28.495, df = 8, p < .001) and other fit indices such as the global fit index (GFI = .982), the comparative fit index (CFI = .975), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA = .085), or the absolute mean of fit (SRMR = .080). In addition, significant relationships were found between the model variables, and the standardized regression coefficients indicate that autonomy support is positively related to autonomy satisfaction (β = .622), competence (β = .419), and interpersonal relationships (β = .648). Likewise, satisfaction with autonomy (β = .488), with competence (β = .338), and with interpersonal relationships (β = .175), predicted autonomous motivation and this, in turn, was negatively related to depression (β = -.149). These results suggest that autonomy support, autonomous motivation, as well as the satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and interpersonal relationships are important factors to consider in the prevention and treatment of depression in college students (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Path analysis model.

Note. The path analysis shows the association between teacher's interpersonal style of autonomy support, satisfaction of the basic needs of the student body, autonomous motivation and depressive symptoms. The coefficients presented are the standardized regression coefficients.

*p<.001.