Intertwining Self-efficacy, Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction, and Emotions in Higher Education Teaching

Previous research on school teachers has successfully explained individual differences by use of motivational constructs established in other populations, particularly self-efficacy, basic psychological needs (BPNS), and emotions. However, these constructs have primarily been examined independently without considering their interplay, and few studies have investigated their role for higher education teachers. The aim of the current paper was therefore to transfer these findings to the context of higher education teaching at universities, and simultaneously, to investigate the connections between these motivational constructs. For this purpose, we propose and test hypotheses of the interplay of self-efficacy, BPNS, and emotions. We conducted a micro-longitudinal study where 103 university teachers from Germany (49 female; average age: 41.4 years, SD=11.0) completed 1090 session-specific assessments of these constructs. Results of structural equation modeling revealed positive associations between self-efficacy and BPNS. Moreover, self-efficacy and BPNS emerged as being positively related to positive emotions and vice versa—however, not all emotions had significant associations with all basic psychological needs.