Psychology in the Schools

Psychology in the Schools

By Cynthia Quevedo

Goal of the study

​•To see if meeting students' psychological needs in keeping with self​-determination theory would meditate the association between teacher-student relationships and happiness.

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•Look for correlation between grade and psychological need satisfaction.

•They examined American students with subsamples of

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​•​African American

•Asian

•Latinx

​•Self-determination theory says that there must be a satisfaction of the three psychological needs for students to thrive

Teacher's role

​• Studies indicate that teachers who support positive teacher-student relationship promote autonomous motivation.

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• It is still not well understood why teacher and student relationships are associated with student happiness

Grade Level

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• It was reported that as students advance, they perceive that their needs for autonomy are met to a lesser degree by both teachers and parents.​

​• There is not a lot of studies that indicate how teacher-student relationship affect minority groups.​

• It has been reported that

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Minority Groups

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​• Autonomous motivation is related to happiness 

​•European American students report higher levels of happiness than minority groups

•African American students report lower level of happiness than all the other groups

Results

​• In the main sample, and all subsamples it was discovered that

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• Meeting psychological needs through positive teacher-student relationships ia a promising path toward happiness and to intrinsic motivation.​

• Only the Latinx community showed a strongly negative correlation between grade and psychological need satisfaction.

​• The effect of psychological need satisfaction on happiness was lower for African American students than for the whole sample

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​​ • teacher-student relationships were moderately to strongly positively correlated associated with

psychological need satisfaction

​ • Psychological need satisfaction is positive correlated with happiness

What can we do now?

Teachers should:

​​• Develop supportive and positive relationship with their students.

​​• Communicate with students in an autonomy-relatedness supportive style.

Do you have any suggestion on what schools can do to make sure that Latinx student's psychological needs are met as they advance grade levels?

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In the study, the psychological need satisfaction showed low level of happiness for African American students.

Do you have any suggestion for an alternative pathway to happiness for African American students?

Students of different ethnicities perceive that their psychological needs are met at different levels.

How would you motivate a diverse group of students?

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The study was done on high school students, do you think if it was done on any other age group the results would be different? Why?