Understanding preservice teachers' intentions to enact autonomy support: The combined perspectives from self-determination theory and mindset theory

This exploratory study seeks to yield a more complete understanding of preservice teachers' intentions to enact autonomy support in their future classrooms based on self-determination theory while drawing complementary perspectives from mindset theory. Survey data (N = 237) from preservice teachers at three U.S. Midwestern universities were collected first using well-established measures of intentions to enact autonomy support and its antecedental beliefs and motivations. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that growth mindset and autonomous orientation shared functional similarities and differences and were associated with intentions to enact autonomy support directly and indirectly through intrinsic motivation for teaching and beliefs about autonomy support. The less studied growth mindset had additive effect. The field journal class assignments (n = 53) from some survey participants were subsequently collected; results complementarily revealed the additional role of growth mindset in intentions to enact autonomy support and control when holding autonomous orientation constant. Finally, the means of all study variables for experienced (n = 99) and novice (n = 138) preservice teachers were compared with 95% confidence intervals. The former had significantly higher autonomous orientation but lower intrinsic motivation. This study is novel in exploring the extent to which growth mindset contributed to intentions to enact autonomy support in a way similar to autonomous orientation yet with additive effect. Major implications for teacher education include placing most emphases in cultivating preservice teachers' positive beliefs about autonomy support while targeting long-term interventions of promoting autonomous orientation and growth-mindset.