Need Satisfaction, Motivation, And Learning Strategy In Junior High School Students' English Learning: A Self-determination Theory Perspective

Employing an organismic-dialectical meta-theory, self-determination theory proposed by Deci and Ryan who are American psychologists identifies three innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness, which are considered essential for understanding what activities individuals engage in and why individuals engage in, and specifies a continuum of self-determination, on which intrinsic motivation, various types of extrinsic (namely external regulation, introjected regulation, and identified regulation),and amotivation lie, represents the outcomes of an ongoing person-environment interaction in which the person has been less versus more effective in internalizing and integrating the regulation of an activity or class of activities. Self-determination theory holds the human's natural development tendencies such as intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation internalization are assumed to require satisfaction of the three innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness which requires nutriments or supports from the social environment to function effectively.As such, the present study aims to explore whether there are gender and grade differences in terms of students'need satisfaction given by English teacher, various types of motivation, and English learning strategy use, (2) the effect of students'need satisfaction given by English teacher on various types of motivation, and the effect of various types of motivation on English learning strategy use, and (3) examine a model of self-determination in English learning based on tenets of self-determination theory. Participants were 417 junior middle school students (271 male, 146 female).They completed a questionnaire that included measures of need satisfaction given by English teacher, motivation, and English learning strategy.The results revealed that:(1) Both of the reliability and validity of the questionnaire for data collection were satisfying that included measures of need satisfaction given by English teacher, motivation, and English learning strategy, (2)there were significantly gender and grade differences most partly in terms of students'need satisfaction given by English teacher, various types of motivation, and English learning strategy use,(3) students'need satisfaction given by English teacher predicted the type of motivation. Further, the various types of motivation predicted students'performance in English learning strategy use, and (4) there were two significant paths in the model of self-determination in English learning. In the end, it gave some educational suggestions for English teachers.