Autonomy-supportive teaching and its antecedents: differences between teachers and teaching assistants and the predictive role of perceived competence

Research predicated on self-determination theory (SDT) has established a positive relationship between autonomy-supportive teaching and a range of desired student outcomes. Therefore, the enhancement of autonomy-supportive teaching is a legitimate focus of efforts to improve student outcomes. In this study, we compared self-reported levels of autonomy-supportive teaching amongst different educational professionals and explored the relationships between four hypothesised antecedents of autonomy support: constraints at work, perceived competence for teaching, perceptions of students’ autonomous motivation towards school and autonomous motivation for teaching. Questionnaire data from 429 teachers and teaching assistants (TAs) working in schools in the United Kingdom (UK) revealed that teachers report significantly more autonomy-supportive teaching than do TAs. Structural equation modelling indicated that the more teachers feel competent, the more their teaching is autonomy-supportive. Amongst a range of other significant findings, teachers, but not TAs, who experience fewer constraints at work are more autonomously motivated towards teaching. The findings suggest that differences in autonomy-supportive teaching may account, at least in part, for the differential impact of teachers and TAs on academic progress as revealed by recent large-scale research in the UK. Furthermore, they identify social-contextual variables that should be considered when attempting to promote autonomy-supportive teaching and educators’ motivation towards teaching