Relationship between Psychological Needs and Academic Self-Concept in Physical Education Pre-Service Teachers: A Mediation Analysis

Abstract

Academic self-concept plays a determining role in the teacher education process. Although research in education has focused on understanding the mechanisms that produce higher academic effort and academic self-confidence, the role that satisfaction and frustration of basic psychological needs and social support and resilience might play on academic self-concept is not known. The aim of the present study was to analyse the mediating effect of social support and resilience in the relationship between satisfaction/frustration of basic psychological needs and academic confidence and academic effort. A non-experimental, cross-sectional, correlational-causal study was designed. In total, 328 Physical Education pre-service teachers (131 women; 197 men) participated from eight Andalusian public universities. The age ranged from 22 to 45 years (M = 24.83; SD = 3.57). The following scales were used: Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction in Education, Basic Psychological Needs Frustration in Education, Resilience, Social Support, and Academic Self-concept. A structural equations analysis with latent variables was carried out and the results obtained show that the satisfaction of basic psychological needs predicts an improvement in academic confidence and academic effort. In addition, resilience and social support significantly mediated the relationship between satisfaction of basic psychological needs and academic self-concept. This research also highlights the importance, both for teachers and researchers, of creating a context for encouraging the satisfaction of basic psychological needs, to promote academic self-concept in initial teacher training.