How teacher agency adapted to child competencies and teacher communion relate to student needs fulfillment and motivation

Abstract

A teacher who behaves warm and affectionate towards a child (strong communion) is more beneficial for the student's motivation than one who expresses feelings of distance or rejection (weak communion). Additionally, adaptive teaching where instructional support, guidance, and supervision are adjusted to the individual child's competencies (adaptive agency) has been proven beneficial for student learning. We modelled teacher behavior in an interpersonal circumplex which allows teacher communion and adaptive agency as well as their effects on the student to be described simultaneously. We investigated the micro-system of the child-teacher dyad and measured child competencies via standardized tests. We predicted that teacher-reported strong communion and adaptive agency fosters child-reported need fulfillment and motivation. Results on 1769 elementary school children and their 77 teachers showed that strong communion and – irrespective of child competencies - weak agency strengthened need fulfillment and motivation. We discuss implications for self-determination theory and adaptive teaching.