A short-term longitudinal study investigating the role of basic psychological needs and autonomous motivation in explaining students' achievement and dropout from teacher education

This pre-registered short-term longitudinal study investigated the relations between basic psychological need satisfaction and motivational classes and objective measures of achievement and dropout across two semesters. Participants were first-year and fourth-year student teachers (n = 272) in Norway, a demographic known for having high attrition rates. Unexpectedly, we found that autonomous motivation and amotivation were negatively related with achievement, whereas gender (males) and previous high school achievement were positively related with it. Controlled motivation and gender (males) were, conversely, positively related with remaining on the study program. As expected, amotivation was related with dropout. Finally, the effect of autonomous motivation on remaining in education was mediated by basic psychological needs, suggesting that autonomous motivation indirectly reduces dropout through the satisfaction of the basic needs. We discuss the limitations of our study and implications for future research.