Self-Determination and Domain-Specific Interests in Initial Teacher Education

Learning environments that support feelings of competence, autonomy, and social relatedness supposedly promote interest. To date, studies investigating this assumption of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) in university settings are rare. This paper addresses the role of perceived need support in subject and educational studies of teacher education for domain-specific interest in a prospective design, using a sample of 3052 student teachers. Controlling for initial domain-specific interest and academic track, results of a structural equation model supported the assumptions of the SDT. One main finding was that perceived support affects interest positively within both the subject and the educational domain, but negatively across domains. Moreover, initial domain-specific interest affects the evaluation of learning conditions in the respective domain.