Contributions of the self-determination theory in predicting university students' academic satisfaction

The specialized literature offers evidence that university dropout rates are high throughout the world, creating problems for the students themselves, for the institution to which they belong, and for society in general. The determining factors of dropout are diverse, considering the student satisfaction with their educational environment as one of the most important ones. There is also evidence that the students' satisfaction with their academic environment depends to a large extent on the classroom motivational climate and the satisfaction of basic psychological needs, main elements of the self-determination theory. In the theoretical framework of self-determined motivation and positive psychology, the objective of this paper is to analyze the predictive capacity of teachers' autonomy support on students' academic satisfaction, mediated by the satisfaction of the students' basic psychological needs. Participants are 752 Dominican university students. Instruments: Perceived Teachers' Autonomy Support, Students' Basic Psychological Needs Scale, and Academic Connectedness Scale. The data has been analyzed through two Structural Equation Models with latent variables, a total mediational model and a partial mediational model. The results show that support for autonomy is positively related to the satisfaction of basic psychological needs; that basic needs are positively related to academic satisfaction; and that there is also a positive and direct effect of autonomy support by teachers on university students' academic satisfaction.