The role of teachers' motivation and mindsets in predicting a (de)motivating teaching style in higher education: a circumplex approach

Although different measures for (de)motivating teaching are available for primary and secondary education, a fine-grained instrument to assess a variety of motivating and demotivating teaching practices in higher education is lacking. Adopting a Self-Determination Theory perspective, this study first used the newly developed Situation-in-School Questionnaire-Higher Education to examine in a sample of higher education teachers (N = 357; M-age = 43.90 years) whether a broad set of need-supportive and need-thwarting teaching practices are organized in a similar circular structure as in secondary education (Aelterman et al. in J Educ Psychol 111:497-521, 2019). Second, this study addressed the role of higher education teachers' motivation to teach (i.e., autonomous, controlled, amotivation) and their beliefs about the malleability of students' intelligence (i.e., fixed and growth mindset) in relation to the various distinguished teaching approaches. Results of multidimensional scaling analyses confirmed the hypothesized circular structure of eight different (de)motivating teaching approaches that differ in their level of need-supportiveness and directiveness. Second, hierarchical regression analyses provided evidence for the fairly independent role of teachers' motivation and mindsets, with the predictive role of each predictor systematically varying as one moves along the circumplex. Autonomous motivation and a growth mindset related positively to more motivating approaches (e.g., guiding, attuning), while controlled motivation, amotivation and a fixed mindset related positively to more demotivating approaches (e.g., domineering, abandoning). The present findings shed new light on the factors that underlie teacher-reported engagement in (de)motivating practices in higher education.