| Abstrakt: |
This study examined the predictive effect of students' perceptions of science teacher's autonomy support and classmates' support on their basic psychological needs (i.e., relatedness, autonomy, and competence) in science. 1,018 middle school students from 9 public schools in Turkey completed self-report surveys. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that while controlling for students' gender and previous achievement, both teachers' autonomy support and classmates' support positively predicted students' basic psychological needs and teacher autonomy support emerged as a better predictor than classmates' support. The amount of explained variance was .41, .38, and .33 in the relatedness, autonomy, and competence aspects, respectively. It can be concluded that students tend to feel more autonomous, related, and competent in science classes where science teachers consider their ideas, encourages them ask questions, and give opportunity to make choices about the lesson and where classmates pay attention to them, treat them nicely, and spend time with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
