A Study On The Relationship Among Senior High School English Learners’ Basic Psychological Needs,Self-Determination Motivation And Agentic Engagement

Basic psychological needs and self-determination motivation are two important factors that influence English learning.In recent years,domestic and foreign scholars have conducted a lot of empirical studies on basic psychological needs,self-determination motivation and learning engagement.Most of the studies have explored the relationship between basic psychological needs,self-determination motivation and the three dimensions of learning engagement(behavioral engagement,affective engagement,and cognitive engagement).However,less attention has been paid to agentic engagement.In view of this,this study adopted a quantitative research method,based on self-determination theory,and took 310 sophomore students in a high school in Chifeng City as the research subjects,collected data through basic psychological needs,self-determination motivation and agentic engagement questionnaires,and explored the relationship between basic psychological needs,self-determination motivation and agentic engagement in high school students.The relationship between basic psychological needs,self-determined motivation and agentic engagement was investigated.The study aims to answer the following research questions: 1.What are the basic psychological needs,self-determination motivation and agentic engagement levels of high school students in classroom English learning? 2.What is the relationship among basic psychological needs,self-determination motivation,and agentic engagement of high school students? 3.Is there a mediating effect of selfdetermination motivation between basic psychological needs and agentic engagement in high school students? If so,to what extent does it play a mediating role? The data were analyzed by SPSS26.0 and Process26.0.The results of the study showed that: 1.The basic psychological needs of high school students were at a moderate level(M=3.88).The level of relational needs was high(M=4.54)and the level of autonomy needs(M=3.73)was above the mean(M=3.50)and the level of competence need(M=3.37)was lower than the mean(M=3.50).The level of autonomy motivation was above the mean(M=3.50),and the energetic input was at a moderate level(M=3.32).2.There was a two-way correlation between basic psychological needs,self-determination motivation,and agentic engagement among high school students.All three basic psychological needs of students were significantly and positively correlated with autonomous motivation.Among them,the correlation between competence need and autonomous motivation(r=0.631)was higher;while the correlation between relatedness need and autonomous motivation was lower(r=0.463);and the correlation between autonomy need and autonomous motivation was lower(r=0.441).Meanwhile,the three basic psychological needs were significantly and positively correlated with agentic engagement.Among them,relatedness need were moderately positively correlated with agentic engagement(r=0.406);autonomy need were moderately positively correlated with agentic engagement(r=0.345);competence need were low positively correlated with agentic engagement(r=0.268);and autonomous motivation was significantly positively correlated with agentic engagement(r=0.417).3.Self-determination motivation mediated between basic psychological needs and agentic engagement,with a mediated model effect value of 0.055 for autonomy need as the independent variable,0.046 for competence need as the independent variable,and 0.073 for autonomy need as the independent variable.Based on these results,the author makes actionable recommendations for improving students’ basic psychological needs,self-determination motivation,and agentic engagement,and discusses the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.