University students’ motivation: The association of parental and teachers’ autonomy support

The aim of this study was to investigate the association of parental and teachers’ autonomous support upon university students relative autonomy. The study also investigated the extent to which there are any differences in relative autonomy across the three different university year groups controlling for age.This study applied a cross-sectional correlation design. Using an online self-report questionnaire, data was collected from 82 participants via convenience sampling. The questionnaire consisted of three measurements; Perceived parental autonomous support scale (P-PASS), Learning Climate Questionnaire (LCQ) and Self-regulation Questionnaire (SRQ-L). The SRQ-L is used to find the students’ autonomous and controlled regulation from which the relative autonomy index (RAI) was calculated. The Analysis of Covariance, used to analyse the extent to which year group predicts relative autonomy whilst controlling for age, was non-significant. Pearson’s correlational analysis reported a non-significant association between parental autonomy support and student autonomy, however a moderate significate interaction (r (80) = .332, p < .01) was found between teacher autonomy support and student autonomy. This was further supported in the multiple regression analysis that determined a significant result (F (2, 79) = 4.82, p = .01) suggesting parental and teacher autonomy support predicted 11% of student relative autonomy