Perceived teachers’ meaning support in learning and college student engagement: The mediation role of basic psychological needs satisfaction

Previous research has shown that support from learning environment relates positively to student engagement. Self-determination theory, a theory of human motivation, asserts that an individual has three innate: (1) basic psychological needs; (2) autonomy, competence, and relatedness; and (3) that student engagement is an outcome of the satisfaction of these basic needs. Teachers, who play an important role as agents in the learning environment, heavily influence student engagement. In the learning process, to engage students, teachers should make learning meaningful. Therefore, this study’s hypothesis is that basic psychological needs satisfaction mediates perceived teachers’ meaning support in learning and college student engagement. Participants in this study were 736 freshmen from Jakarta State University. The Engagement Learning Index was used to measure college student engagement, Personal Meaning Profile B to measure perceived teachers’ meaning support in learning, and the Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction Scale to collect data of basic psychological needs satisfaction. The PROCESS macro by Hayes for SPSS was used to test the mediation variable. The results indicated that basic psychological needs satisfaction partially mediated the relationship between perceived teachers’ meaning support in learning and college students’ engagement. The results suggest that teachers should consider supporting students to have meaning in learning to make them intrinsically motivated and promote a quality student engagement.