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Social Sciences & Humanities Open 11 (2025) 101354
Available online 19 February 2025
2590-2911/© 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Regular Article
Student teachers
′
basic psychological needs and motivation underlie the
experiences of educational quality: A pre-registered qualitative study
Lucas M. Jeno
a,*
, Chantal Levesque-Bristol
b
, Jorun Nylehn
c
, Zeljana Pavlovic
a
, Dag Roness
a
,
Netta Weinstein
d
a
Department of Education, University of Bergen, P.O. BOX7800, 5020, Bergen, Norway
b
Purdue University, 155 South Grant Street, West Lafayette, IN, 47907-2114, USA
c
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Bergen, P.O. BOX7800, 5020, Bergen, Norway
d
University of Reading, Box 217, Reading RG6 &AH, Windsor Hall, Upper Redlands Road, Reading, RG1 5JL, UK
ABSTRACT
This qualitative pre-registered study was designed to investigate student teachers’ motivational experiences concerning educational quality from the lens of Self-
Determination Theory. Experiences of educational quality have large implications for learning and wellness and educational quality is incorporated in the law of
study regulation. Through four separate focus groups, we interviewed a total of 18 student teachers from either rst-year or fourth-year Norwegian teacher programs
on their experiences of educational quality and the satisfaction of their basic psychological needs and motivation. Our deductive thematic analysis showed that the
psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, as well as autonomous and controlled motivation, underlie the experiential qualities of students’
understanding of educational quality. Specically, we found that relatedness was a protective factor in the experience of persistence and wellness in the teacher
program, whereas competence frustration led to feelings of having a high workload. Finally, autonomous motivation was experienced as vital for continuing teacher
education, whereas pressure and feelings of compliance increased the students
′
sense of controlled motivation, which resulted in feelings of wanting to drop out.
Although our study had some limitations, our results provide important implications for how study programs can be organized to create better integration of the
program to enhance satisfaction of basic psychological needs. Furthermore, our pre-registration of this qualitative focus group interview study is a major contribution
to this area of open science within Self-Determination Theory and qualitative methodology in general, which is still nascent.
1. Introduction
The experience of having a “high-quality education” is important for
students learning and wellness in higher education (Gibbs, 2010). In
particular, when it comes to a complex study program such as teacher
education (Hans´
en et al., 2012), quality is a concern (Skagen & Elstad,
2023) as student teachers across Norway are experiencing adverse ef-
fects and dropping out of their study programs (Bakken, 2022; Elstad
et al., 2023; Høgheim & Federici, 2022; Liu & Sitoe, 2020). What con-
stitutes educational quality has long been debated, yet the idea of
elevating educational quality remains essential for many stakeholders
(Falch et al., 2022; OECD, 2008). In this respect, four dimensions are
regarded as important hallmarks of educational quality: student-active
learning, an aligned educational program, relevant education, and
appropriate workload (Barnett, 1992; Biggs & Tang, 2011). For instance,
previous studies have consistently shown the importance of
student-active learning (Freeman et al., 2014), alignment of education
(Biggs, 2003), relevance (Johansen, Eliassen, & Jeno, 2023), and
workload (Karjalainen et al., 2008) for multiple outcomes.
However, according to Self-Determination Theory (SDT: Ryan &
Deci, 2017), for these four dimensions to be true indicators of high
educational quality, they need to be accompanied by the experience of
basic psychological need satisfaction. In line with SDT, psychological
need satisfaction and motivation (i.e., processes) are considered
important for increasing outcomes such as learning and wellness. This
sentiment is also echoed by scholars who differentiate between the
process and outcomes of quality (e.g., Harvey & Green, 1993; Hov-
dhaugen et al., 2016), suggesting that constructs such as teaching and
learning environment and motivation are crucial for understanding the
outcomes of quality (Nerland & Prøitz, 2018). According to SDT,
high-quality education is characterized by a teaching and learning
environment that satises basic psychological needs and facilitates
autonomous student motivation (Ryan et al., 2023). When students
experience satisfaction of their basic needs, they report high-quality
motivation, which has been shown to be related to a range of bene-
cial outcomes such as achievement, vitality, positive affectivity,
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: Lucas.Jeno@uib.no (L.M. Jeno), cbristol@purdue.edu (C. Levesque-Bristol), Jorun.Nylehn@uib.no (J. Nylehn), Zeljana.Pavlovic@uib.no
(Z. Pavlovic), Dag.Roness@uib.no (D. Roness), N.weinstein@reading.ac.uk (N. Weinstein).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Social Sciences & Humanities Open
journal homepage: www.sciencedirect.com/journal/social-sciences-and-humanities-open
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2025.101354
Received 25 November 2024; Received in revised form 7 February 2025; Accepted 15 February 2025
Social Sciences & Humanities Open 11 (2025) 101354
2
persistence, and effort (Howard et al., 2024). Although educational
quality remains an important factor that needs to be increased, there is a
paucity of studies that have looked specically into the motivational
underpinnings of student teachers’ educational quality from an SDT
perspective in a higher education context (e.g., Ryan et al., 2022). Thus,
to further contribute to the literature and address this knowledge gap,
the main aim of this study is to investigate student teachers’ experiences
of educational quality in higher education from an SDT perspective
through qualitative analysis. To guide our work, the following research
question was posed: “How do student teachers’ experiences of basic
psychological need satisfaction and motivation reect their perception
of quality within their teacher education?”
1.1. Basic psychological needs and motivation
According to SDT, the teaching and learning environment can sup-
port students’ motivation, learning processes and wellness by satisfying
the students’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and
relatedness (Ryan et al., 2023). The need for autonomy is conceptualized
as feeling a sense of freedom to behave in ways that are personally
valued and desired, a sense of choice that allows one to do so, and a
sense of agency – that one stands behind one’s own behavior. The need
for autonomy is expressed when students experience exibility in terms
of self-initiation of their behavior and meaningful choices (Deci & Ryan,
1987). In contrast, a lack of autonomy satisfaction is experienced when
the teaching and learning environment shows rigidity or puts pressure
on the students. The need for competence is dened as feeling effective
when interacting with the environment. The need for competence is
expressed when students are experiencing an optimal amount of chal-
lenge or can display mastery by progressing or improving in a learning
activity (Ryan & Moller, 2017). On the other hand, when the teaching
and learning environment is unable to structure the tasks or provide
learning guidance along the way to master the challenges presented,
students may feel less efcacious in mastering such challenges or ob-
stacles. Relatedness is conceptualized as being cared for, a sense of
belonging with others, and caring for others. Relatedness is expressed
when students are in trusting relationships, groups, or organizations
where they can relate to each other and collaborate openly and
authentically (Weinstein & DeHaan, 2014; Deci & Ryan, 2014).
Conversely, students experience a lack of satisfaction in relatedness
when they are in situations where there is competition or group con-
icts, or when the students feel lonely.
When the students experience satisfaction of their psychological
needs, the students’ motivation is characterized by self-endorsement,
volition, and choice. Within SDT, this form of motivation is considered
autonomous and regarded as a high-quality form of motivation.
Autonomous motivation can either be fully self-determined as when a
behavior is intrinsically motivated (e.g., enjoyment, inherently
rewarding), or partly self-determined when a behavior is regulated by
identication (e.g., personally important, valuable) (Ryan & Deci,
2017). Unlike, when basic psychological needs are not satised or even
frustrated by over-challenging or pressuring students or making them
feel rejected or isolated, their motivation moves towards control
(Bartholomew et al., 2011; Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013). Such
controlled motivation is regarded as low-quality because behaviors are
regulated by external factors (e.g., acting predominantly in response to
either external or internal pressures such as rewards, or threats of
punishment) or introject regulation (e.g., acting to avoid guilt or attain
pride and self-esteem) (Ryan & Deci, 2017).
Recent studies have shown that, to the extent that students’ moti-
vation is primarily autonomous, positive outcomes for both learning and
well-being follow. For instance, a recent meta-analysis showed that, in
the educational context, autonomous motivation is associated with
positive behavioral, cognitive, and affective outcomes (Howard et al.,
2021). Specically within higher education, recent studies have shown
that autonomous motivation predicts persistence (Messerer et al., 2023),
engagement (Ito & Umemoto, 2022), transfer of knowledge
(Levesque-Bristol, Richards, Zissimopoulos, Wang, & Yu, 2020), and
achievement (Alamer & Alrabai, 2022; Wang et al., 2022). In contrast,
controlled motivation is linked to less desirable outcomes, and has been
shown to increase test anxiety (Iraola-Real et al., 2022) and reduce vi-
tality (Jeno et al., 2021), amongst other things (for a review, see Howard
et al., 2021).
1.2. Linking Self-Determination Theory to educational quality
The literature within SDT linking basic psychological needs, moti-
vation, and educational quality is scarce, and, to our knowledge, no
research exists on what constitutes a high-quality education. The SDT
literature discusses the concept of “ourishing”, which is a develop-
mental concept focusing on the factors required for growth and wellness
(Ryan et al., 2023), as a sign of “quality”. Although the idea of what
constitutes educational quality is debated (e.g., Harvey & Green, 1993),
it is commonly argued that relying too heavily or solely on performance
indicators (i.e., outcomes) is a misleading view of educational quality
(Barnett, 1992), and focusing on educational processes is also important
(Gibbs, 2010). Taking process factors into consideration is important
when assessing quality in higher education because only focusing on
outcome indicators shows a small predictive value (Falch et al., 2022);
Nerland and Prøitz (2018). The conceptualizations of educational
quality as both process and outcomes are not too dissimilar from the idea
of ourishing as dened within SDT. Building on this and given that SDT
focuses on ourishing as an important indicator of “high-quality” edu-
cation, we provide theoretical justications for the linkage between
psychological need satisfaction, motivation, and educational quality.
In the present study, we argue that students will experience higher
educational quality as a function of the satisfaction of psychological
needs and autonomous motivation. The general proposition is that the
experience of psychological need satisfaction leads to higher quality
motivation (autonomous motivation), which in turn will lead to higher
educational quality. For instance, SDT has long argued for the impor-
tance of environmental and contextual factors for students’ motivation
and educational outcomes, mediated by basic psychological needs
(Vallerand, 1997). That is, how the higher education context affects
students’ motivation, which in turn will impact educational outcomes
such as learning, wellness, and persistence, is dependent upon the stu-
dents’ experience regarding their basic psychological needs. SDT argues
that satisfaction of psychological needs is important at each level of
analysis, with downward implications (Deci & Ryan, 2011). For
instance, at a distal level, an institution’s focus on high stakes or per-
formance will affect how the institution is organized and how much
support is allocated for student learning. This will in turn impact student
motivation negatively due to the lack of autonomy (e.g., pressuring
students), competence (e.g., poor learning strategies), and relatedness
(e.g., competition among students) satisfaction (Pelletier & Sharp,
2009). Even at a proximal level, if the organization of a teaching lesson
or learning activity is unstructured and chaotic, the students will expe-
rience a lack of need satisfaction, which will have implications for the
student’s interest and enjoyment (i.e., motivation) in that given
moment.
Finally, from a theoretical point of view, autonomous motivation
should be related to higher education quality because, as opposed to
controlled motivations, autonomous motivation is characterized by
greater positive emotions, persistence and involvement, and a sense of
personal importance as a motivational force (Koestner & Losier, 2002),
presumably because their basic psychological needs have been satised
(Ryan & Deci, 2017).
In sum, although evidence for the link between psychological needs,
motivation, and educational quality is limited, we argue that, from a
theoretical stance, there should be a connection between these factors.
We argue primarily that the satisfaction of basic psychological needs is
an important prerequisite for the experience of having a high-quality
L.M. Jeno et al.
Social Sciences & Humanities Open 11 (2025) 101354
3
education. Although, in certain domains such as education, one of the
needs may take precedence over the other (Levesque-Bristol, 2021), SDT
proposes that satisfaction of all three needs are necessary for learning
and wellness (Ryan & Deci, 2020). Thus, to the extent that students
experience low or high educational quality, this is theorized to be a
function of basic needs satisfaction, yet given the educational context,
one of the needs (e.g., competence) may be more proximal to the stu-
dents’ experience of certain aspects of educational quality. Further,
satisfaction of basic psychological needs is a necessary path for
high-quality autonomous motivation, which is required for fullling the
educational demands of higher education. Finally, to the extent that
students experience basic psychological need satisfaction and autono-
mous motivation, in line with SDT, we assume that benecial outcomes
will follow, including more engagement, meaningful and relevant
learning, better wellness, and more persistence.
1.3. Study context
The current study was conducted in Norway among student teachers
on a ve-year teacher education program. The teacher education pro-
gram consists of 300 credits’ (ECTS) worth of courses, and students get
their master’s degree in the subject of their choice, and didactics,
pedagogy, and practice are an integrated part of their program (Ministry
of Education, 2013, 2015). The program includes two academic subjects
(Subject 1 and Subject 2) combined with didactics, pedagogy (general
didactics), and discipline-specic subjects. The students are required to
complete 160 ECTS in Subject 1 and a minimum of 60 ECTS in Subject 2.
Furthermore, they also need 30 ECTS in didactics, 30 ECTS in pedagogy,
and 20 ECTS in discipline-specic subjects. Finally, there are 100 days of
practical experience at schools (Ulvik et al., 2023). Their master’s pro-
gram is connected to Subject 1, and the students can choose between a
subject matter or a didactics-oriented master’s thesis. Four faculties at
the university cooperate on the integrated teacher education program.
The student teachers attend classes in their chosen subject and their
didactics at the faculty related to their professional afliation. In the
pedagogy classes, all student teachers study together. The education is
provided through large lectures, smaller seminar groups, independent
study, and nally, through practical training, individually and in pairs,
in both lower and upper secondary schools.
There is a diverse range of denitions of quality (e.g., Harvey &
Green, 1993) and different perspectives on quality (e.g., Tam, 2001),
and what constitutes educational quality is to some extent legally
established in Norway. Thus, in the current study we draw on the legal
denition of quality in studies and education that each institution is
expected to provide student teachers in Norwegian higher education.
According to the Study Inspection Regulation (www.lawdata.no), higher
education legislation states that there are specic requirements that
each study program in higher education in Norway has to fulll. Ac-
cording to the ofcial legal denition, each study program need to 1)
allow students to take an active role in the learning process, 2) adapt the
study content, program structure, and infrastructure to the learning
outcomes in a coherent fashion, 3) be relevant for the student’s future
work life, and 4) have an appropriate workload, which in Norway is
between 1500–1800 h a year.
Based on this legal regulation of quality, we operationalize educa-
tional quality around the following areas: student-active learning,
coherence between subjects in the teacher education program, educa-
tional relevance to the teaching profession, and workload.
There is some preliminary evidence that supports our theoretical line
of reasoning regarding the importance of satisfying basic psychological
needs for these dimensions of educational quality as stated in the legal
denition of quality. For example, student-active learning has been
found to enhance motivation (Jerez et al., 2021) and engagement (Jeno
et al., 2017), as these can help build bonds and enable
effectance-relevant feedback, thereby supporting relatedness (Escandell
& Chu, 2021) and competence (Ryan & Moller, 2017), respectively.
Furthermore, a recent study found that enhancing relevance and align-
ment between content and teaching, increased students’ autonomous
motivation, which in turn was a predictor of wellness and persistence in
the learning activity (Johansen, Eliassen, & Jeno, 2023). Finally, a
high-pressure workload has been found to be related to a lack of basic
psychological need satisfaction (e.g., Basson & Rothmann, 2017).
Thus, some indirect evidence links SDT and educational quality,
proving a new and important research avenue for investigating how
basic psychological needs and motivation are expressed in educational
quality.
2. Methods
2.1. Participants
Participants (N =18) consisted of student teachers drawn from the
humanities and natural sciences faculties from a large university in
Norway. Participants were drawn from a purposive sample (Cohen et al.,
2011), either from their rst or their fourth year in the teacher program.
See Table 1 for full sample characteristics and distribution. Selection
criteria were based on differences between rst-year and fourth-year
students in dropout rates and educational experiences of the teacher
program (Bore et al., 2019). We conducted four focus group interviews.
Our sample size was based on Hennink and Kaiser (2022), which found
that four focus groups are needed for code saturation, especially given
our deductive and theoretical approach. Each focus group interview
consisted of 4–6 students, because this range has been shown to be
optimal for focus groups (Kitzinger & Barbour, 2001). We opted to use
focus groups because we were interested in the possibility of participants
sharing and discussing different experiences and thoughts about quality
in their studies and education, something which is not feasible with
individual interviews (Moser & Korstjens, 2018).
2.2. Procedure
We conducted four separate focus group interviews. The participants
were placed in focus groups based on faculty afliation and year in the
teacher program. All students signed an informed consent form before
starting the interview. We employed a semi-structured interview guide,
and the same guide was used across all focus groups. The interview
guide was developed by all the authors (see Appendix), based on SDT’s
conceptualization of the basic psychological needs for autonomy,
competence, and relatedness, and the difference between autonomous
and controlled motivation. Furthermore, questions concerning educa-
tional quality were developed based on the operationalization of the
legal denition of educational quality described above.
Each focus group interview lasted approximately 1 h and was
Table 1
Sample characteristics.
Variable n(%)
Study year
First-year 9 (50%)
Fourth-year 9 (50%)
Faculty
Humanities 7 (39%)
Natural sciences 11 (61%)
Disciplinary primary subjects
English 1 (5%)
Religion 4 (22%)
Spanish 2 (11%)
Mathematics 5 (28%)
Biology 3(17%)
Chemistry 3(17%)
Note: N =18.
L.M. Jeno et al.
Social Sciences & Humanities Open 11 (2025) 101354
4
recorded and then transcribed verbatim by the fourth author. The focus
group interviews were led by the rst and fourth authors. Participants
were given a food gift card (worth 150 NOK =~14 USD) for partici-
pating in the study.
Ethical considerations were addressed by providing the participants
with the appropriate information for them to provide their informed
consent, giving them time to ask questions after the interviews, and
anonymizing the audio recordings after transcription. We removed any
mention of personal characteristics to increase the anonymity of the
participants.
2.3. Methodological design and analytical strategy
The present study was pre-registered prior to data collection, and this
pre-registration is available at the Open Science Framework (https://osf.
io/r5stn/). The pre-registration contains a-priori information about the
research aims and question, sampling strategy, study design, data
collection, interview guide, analytical plan, and credibility strategy. The
pre-registration was based on the template provided by Haven et al.
(2020). Two discrepancies from the pre-registration were that we
omitted member checking and triangulation of data collection. These
were omitted due to a lack of feasibility of conducting this extensive
moderation process.
We used thematic analysis with a deductive approach to analyze our
data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Thematic analysis was chosen because it is
exible and allows us to use a theoretical framework and apply a
deductive analytical approach to answer our research question(s).
The following steps were conducted in the analysis to ensure delity
with a deductive approach to thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006,
2020). First, two of the authors read the transcripts to examine and
familiarize themselves with the data. Second, initial codes were gener-
ated and dened within either psychological needs, motivation, or
educational quality. After reviewing these major themes, we identied
subthemes within each major theme. This process was repeated, and
codes that did not t the major themes were collected to identify new
themes and subthemes based on their patterns of meaning. Finally, the
authors discussed the identied themes and subthemes, and the names
and meanings of the themes.
Methodological integrity was ensured through consensus building
among authors, multiple researchers collecting and analyzing the data,
and triangulation with other data sources. We used NVivo 12 as the
software to code the data, as its strength lies in its ability to manage data
and code and to achieve breadth in data analysis (Mortelmans, 2019).
3. Results
Below, we present the results from our thematic analysis. The
themes, subthemes, and frequency of codes from the analysis are also
presented. The quotes illustrated below capture the themes and sub-
themes that were discussed across the focus group interviews and rep-
resents multiple student voices. Table 2 depicts the results from
students’ experiences of basic psychological need satisfaction and
motivation, whereas Table 3 summarizes students’ experiences of
educational quality and structural issues of the educational program. In
general, we found support for the basic tenets of the importance of basic
psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness for
educational quality. Furthermore, we also identied themes revolving
around wellness indicators and structural issues of the students’ pro-
gram. We rst present the ndings regarding the basic psychological
needs and motivation, and then the results of students’ experiences of
wellness in the educational program and structural issues of the
program.
3.1. Basic psychological needs
Results show that students experienced both need satisfaction and a
lack of need satisfaction of all three of the psychological needs. Across all
three psychological needs, when students report satisfaction of their
psychological needs, the experience is reported as more positive. In
contrast, when the students report a lack of satisfaction of their psy-
chological needs, the experience is reported as more negative.
3.2. Autonomy
The analysis reveals one major subtheme that spoke to the need for
autonomy, exibility and choice. The students voiced experiences of
having few choices regarding their education or their perspective being
taken into consideration. This is illustrated by one student:
“Such as exam forms […] last year for (one exam) everybody dis-
agreed, even the lecturer disagreed that this was a good exam form
[…], they asked for feedback at the end of the semester, how we
found it, and I hope they take that into consideration and x things,
but I did not get the impression that we were heard, nothing was
done really, we could not organize a better exam.”
In general, the students experienced that they had few options in the
program, which they viewed as a negative, specically in terms of
choosing different subjects or topics to study. This negative experience
may be due to the lack of autonomy satisfaction. On the other hand,
students discussed how instructors were able to show exibility in their
educational context, which they viewed as a positive, which may be
Table 2
Themes and subthemes of basic psychological needs and motivation.
Themes and subthemes Frequency
Theme 1: Autonomy
Flexibility and choice 50
Theme 2: Competence
Challenge and efcacy 27
Structure 23
Theme 3: Relatedness
Cared for and belongingness 39
Collaboration 5
Loneliness 13
Theme 4: Autonomous motivation
Motivation to become teacher 9
Subject interest 7
Motivation to persist 24
Theme 5: Controlled motivation
Pressured experience 17
Motivation to persist 17
Note: The frequency denotes the number of codes that came up during
the analysis across the four interviews. In all themes and subthemes,
codes were analyzed from all four focus group interviews.
Table 3
Themes and subthemes of structural factors.
Themes and subthemes Frequency
Theme 6: Educational quality
Student-active learning 19
Coherence between subjects 60
Educational relevance 67
Educational workload 87
Theme 7: Well-being in program
Affectivity 35
Stress 14
Theme 8: Structure of the program
Program workload 9
Program coherence 12
Note: The frequency denotes the number of codes that came up
during the analysis across the four interviews. In all themes and
subthemes, codes were generated from all four focus group in-
terviews, except for theme 8, in which the codes were generated
from three focus group interviews.
L.M. Jeno et al.
Social Sciences & Humanities Open 11 (2025) 101354
5
since this supports autonomy. As another student said:
“We had a teacher in our rst year for (the course), and she was going
to have us in our second year too. She starts the class the same way as
previously, and realized that she recognized some of the students
[…], she asked what we wanted to learn about instead, we said how
to teach (the course) in a high school environment, she said ok […] it
was the closest thing we had ever had to an actual class in the school
practicum.”
The only time the students were able to express freedom and self-
choice was in regard to managing their workload, though they either
had the choice to work harder or aim for a lower grade. When asked
what they could do to have control over their workload, one student
said: “work a little bit all the time”, whereas another student said: “You
can always choose to go for lower grades in a way”.
3.3. Competence
For competence, we found two subthemes, challenge and efcacy,
and structure. Several students mentioned feeling overly challenged,
specically in relation to the workload in their program. This is exem-
plied by a student who said: “we still had a lot of articles left, and it was
sort of every week, so it was very overwhelming, and then it’s like no, I give
up, I won’t even try”. Some students also mentioned that challenges lead
to them not feeling efcacious when tackling such challenges. The
experience of being overly challenged combined with low efcacy was
related to feelings of stress and a lack of competence satisfaction. As one
student said:
“I feel like there is a lot that’s just thrown in now, especially after the
practicum; there is a lot that must be thought about and analyzed and
produced […], it’s a bit stressful to come out of what is supposed to
be the experience of being a teacher and then just get a ‘by the way
you need to produce a text here, you need to produce a text there,
you need to produce a text there, produce text, produce text,’; you
don’t get to process what has gone well, and what has gone less
well.”
Further, when analyzing the data, we found that a major subtheme
within competence was structure. Specically, the subtheme of struc-
tures was linked to students’ experience of information and guidance. As
another student said:
“I feel that the information is bad, honestly, in the teacher education
program when it comes to the choices you can make, maybe I would
have felt that there was more freedom in choosing if there was more
information about what you could do.”
When talking about structure related to guidance, one student
expressed that they feel competent because there is a clear path and
structure as to how to create this lesson plan, stating:
“We make a lesson plan […], which we have done since our rst
didactics lesson, then we do a teaching session and split it up, and we
get a very good understanding of why you do that activity before you
do the other activity […] everything makes sense in a way.”
3.4. Relatedness
As for relatedness need, students talked about the importance of
others and how feeling cared for and a sense of belonging were essential
for wellness and maintaining motivation for their education. As one
student explained:
“I would say that I am doing well, but that is because I am with
people that I care for, and we sit and we talk together and comfort
each other, and we back each other up, but I am – have never been as
stressed in my entire life.”
Another student explained that: “Without each other, it would not have
been possible”. Although not a very prominent subtheme, students re-
ported that there was a culture of collaboration among the students, and
this was tightly linked to the experience of relatedness, as one student
put it: “But we work together a lot, and we complain to each other, which
helps a lot”.
In contrast, some students experienced relatedness frustration, which
manifested as loneliness. As mentioned by one student:
“I have gotten to know people, like you (another participant) in
lectures and seminars, but I have not, I know only a few people, so I
don’t feel like there is much unity, at least that – I don’t feel like I am
a part of like a collective group of student teachers.”
This feeling of loneliness was mainly driven by lack of fully inte-
grating the program as a whole, and how students felt compartmental-
ized, as explained by one student:
“I miss a proper classroom feeling because, compared to the teacher
education for fth to tenth grade, they are together as one class the
entire time, they have their classes together which seems nice, but
we have one or two classes together during the year, and then we are
just spread out and mixed with the other study programs.”
3.5. Motivation
In terms of motivation, we found patterns of both autonomous and
controlled motivation and some differences between the rst-year and
fourth-year students.
For autonomous motivation, we found three subthemes in our data.
When talking about what it is like being a student teacher, several stu-
dents stated that it was fun, specically when they could “feel” like a
teacher during their practicum. They felt more like a teacher which
contributed to a sense of relevance. In terms of differences between
study years, our results showed that for fourth-year students, autono-
mous motivation was evident due to taking part in practicum, which
made them feel like teachers. In contrast, rst-year students felt less
autonomous motivation because they had to take very theory-focused
subjects (and not much pedagogy). This in turn reduced their feeling
of being a teacher, which took a toll on their autonomous motivation,
which was exemplied by a fourth-year student:
“Those semesters where the majority (of classes) is subject material,
not practicum or pedagogy that don’t – you don’t feel like a student
teacher in a way, but when you have practicum and pedagogy and
didactics, then I feel like I have extra motivation to learn […], the
feeling of being a student teacher is most evident when you have
pedagogy and practicum I think.”
This was further exemplied by a rst-year student:
“It was a bit stupid that there are no [didactics-courses] in rst year
really, it could be that lots of people drop out because they don’t see
the point, or they lose their motivation for it.”
A strong subtheme that we uncovered in the data was autonomous
motivation to persist in their teacher education program. When asked
about their motivation to continue their program one student said: “I
want to be a teacher, so I’m not going to quit, I’m motivated to keep going, but
it’s more my own motivation that I have from a desire to complete my edu-
cation”. However, this autonomous motivation uctuates and is also
dependent upon the environment. As one student said: “My intrinsic
motivation uctuates in line with how interesting the study is, study load and
sense of mastery and stuff like that, it uctuates up and down”.
For controlled motivation, the results show that students encoun-
tered a number of external factors that made them remain on their
programs, and that this form of motivation was experienced with a sense
of pressure. One student explained:
L.M. Jeno et al.
Social Sciences & Humanities Open 11 (2025) 101354
6
“I can’t drop out now because I will be left with nothing, we don’t have a
single degree, even if we have studied for almost 4 years, so I guess it’s that
that motivates you to work – these four years will have been wasted in a
way”. Yet another student said:
“I have to say for me it’s maybe just extrinsic motivation rather than
intrinsic motivation, like when you have started something like
student loans and everything like that, I should complete the
program.”
3.6. Educational quality
In our analysis, we identied the subthemes of the four dimensions of
educational quality as: students’ role as active learners, coherence be-
tween subjects, educational relevance, and educational workload. The
least prominent subtheme was students’ role as active learners. Students
reported that a major hindrance for active learning was large lectures.
The students stated that being able to be active in class had a positive
impact on learning and competence satisfaction. As one student noted:
“[when active] That’s when I feel like I learn something from the class, it’s
like, being able to work with it while I learn about it in a way makes me
actually learn something.”
For coherence between pedagogics, didactics, and the teaching
subjects, the students reported that it was difcult to understand the
connection between these subjects, specically, between the theoretical
subjects of their choice, and their applicability to being a teacher. As one
student said: “I feel like the connection disappears a bit when we only have
subject material classes, so now, I almost forget that I am supposed to teach
this to others as well”. This is closely related to the experience of feeling
that their education is relevant for the actual profession of teaching.
Some students reported that the knowledge they gained from some of
the subjects was too advanced for what they were going to teach the
students, especially when the didactic subjects were unable to make it
relevant to the practical teaching. This was true for both theoretical
subjects (e.g., biology, religion) and pedagogy (i.e., theoretical theories
and models). However, students also referred to topics and seminars,
and practical experiences, which helped them see the relevance of the
theory.
The most prominent subtheme revolved around educational work-
load. Students experienced a high workload, which was viewed as
negative and was tightly linked to a lack of competence satisfaction and
controlled motivation. This experience was a function of a lack of
coherence within the program, but also too much content and too many
activities in the program (and courses). The students reported feeling
overly challenged, and persevered because they felt they had to. To the
extent that students were able to reduce their workload, it was due to
individual teachers or study counselors showing a degree of exibility
and acknowledging the students, and not because the students them-
selves could reduce it. As one student reported:
“I nd that I am never able to keep up, there’s always something you
have to read, there is always something you have to write, there is
always something you did not manage to do and that is also difcult,
especially when we have other – I have (other classes) as well; it gets
a bit much.”
3.7. Well-being in program
Two subthemes (i.e., stress and affectivity) were identied con-
cerning well-being within the program. Although some of these sub-
themes were interrelated, they were still distinct in terms of their major
themes. For instance, at a personal level, the students reported high
levels of stress and negative affectivity as a function of their workload
and lack of coherence within the program. As one student summarized:
“How are we supposed to start working afterwards, because now I’m
so tired, fantasizing about a year where I just do nothing to bring
myself back again, everything takes more energy because I don’t
have any energy to call on.”
On the other hand, several students experienced positive affect and
reported having fun in their program, especially before starting a period
with an intensive workload or having just nished this period. For some,
positive affectivity and a sense of fun were due to satisfaction of their
relatedness need, as noted by two students:
“I think I’m doing well on the teacher program, but I don’t feel like that
has to do with the teacher program, I feel that it has to do with social
circles, people you meet,” and “I think so, because I’ve found a good
group, social group I’m in.”
3.8. Structure of the program
The nal major theme that we found in our data revolved around the
structure of the program. We found two subthemes within this larger
theme. One subtheme concerned issues around program workload,
where we found a difference between rst and fourth-year students
specically related to organizational issues in the program, which led
students to experience high levels of pressure and stress. Fourth-year
students discussed how the organization of the different courses
within the teacher education program was an issue in terms of workload
and negative experiences. As one fourth-year student noted:
“I end up having three oral exams in the same week, it’s absolutely
crazy, how is that possible? You have so many weeks to choose from
and there is no possibility to change the date because, no, the others
already picked those dates, sorry you missed that deadline because
you were on practicum and didn’t have the time to be checking your
email 24/7.”
In contrast, this was not as strong of a theme among rst-year stu-
dents. One noted:
“I think there could have been more academic material, more mandatory
reading, I actually think there is too little on the curriculum.”
Whilst another said:
“With those courses where there are no mandatory assignments […], it is
completely up to you if you manage the workload or not.”
Another related example was the lack of integration of the practicum
that the students had to complete, yet for which they received no formal
credits. The students found that this added even more pressure to their
workload, as one student explained:
“We have 100 days of practicum over the course of four years, for
which we receive zero credits. We are doing a six-year program in
ve years, and it is so silly that it has been set up this way.”
Finally, a subtheme we found concerned program coherence. In
particular, students experienced this lack of coherence and integration
of different courses and subjects as a negative. The lack of coherence in
the program resulted in the lack of relatedness satisfaction that many
students felt. As one student stated:
“That’s what’s a bit difcult with the teacher education program
[…], we are very spread out, and then you also maybe don’t have a
very … well, you don’t really have that much attachment amongst
the student teachers.”
4. Discussion
This pre-registered qualitative study explored the characteristics of
basic psychological needs and motivation underpinning student
L.M. Jeno et al.
Social Sciences & Humanities Open 11 (2025) 101354
7
teachers’ experiences of educational quality in higher education. The
research question “How do student teachers’ experiences of basic psy-
chological need satisfaction and motivation reect their perception of
quality within their teacher education” was considered using a thematic
analysis through the lens of SDT. We uncovered themes and subthemes
that are in line with our pre-registered assumptions and theoretical
framework. However, a number of interesting themes were also
discovered that we had not expected. In general, the results showed that
the factors inuencing the students’ basic psychological needs satisfac-
tion were important experiences underlying educational quality and
wellness in the teacher program. Furthermore, satisfaction of basic
psychological needs was also important for the experience of autono-
mous motivation, which we found was essential for the students to
remain in the program and for continued motivation to become a
teacher.
4.1. Basic psychological needs
In general, the participants experienced a lack of both the need for
autonomy and competence, which in general was experienced as
negative, another general nding was that, to the extent that the stu-
dents experienced relatedness satisfaction, this had a shielding effect for
the students.
For autonomy, our analysis showed that the participants voiced few
options for exercising autonomy around decisions regarding their edu-
cation. The students in the current study expressed that they could
“choose” to work less or receive a lower grade, which cannot be char-
acterized as true choice but rather control. This nding suggests that the
students’ experiences of having an appropriate workload (dimension of
educational quality) may be explained by the experience of the lack of
autonomy satisfaction. A contrasting example was that when students
felt that their instructor or program was exible, they experienced
greater autonomy satisfaction. This lack of autonomy satisfaction may
be a concern given the many benets of autonomy. For instance, in a
study by Jang et al. (2016), the ability to choose the learning methods
was predictive of needs satisfaction and conceptual learning.
For competence, our ndings suggest that a lack of competence
satisfaction was mainly impacted negatively by being overly challenged
and a lacking sense of efcacy. Students reported that having demands
and expectations that were too high led to low feelings of efcacy, which
led them to give up, or to lower feelings of wellness. This is not sur-
prising as external controls and pressures are likely to provide less in-
formation and guidance to the students, thereby making less progress in
their sense of mastery (Ryan & Deci, 2017). In contrast, a mechanism
that supported competence satisfaction was structure. When students
were given structure, accompanied by guidance and clear descriptions
and information, the students reported a stronger sense of competence.
This nding was recently supported through a meta-analysis (Patall
et al., 2023).
For relatedness, when the participants reported satisfaction of their
needs in this area, this was experienced as a positive. Our analysis seems
to indicate that relatedness has a shielding effect against adverse effects
such as low motivation, low wellness, or dropout intentions. Students
stated that the ability to connect, collaborate, and feel cared for by
others was important for persisting in the program, and functioning well
despite adverse situations during the program. This has been shown in
previous studies which have found that low social integration among
student teachers is related to dropout intentions (Bohndick, 2020),
which also speaks to the inherent need to belong to a group for healthy
functioning (Allen et al., 2021). Resolving structural issues such as high
workload, low coherence within the program, or a poorly organized
practicum is nevertheless important. A previous evaluation of the
teacher education program in Norway has pointed out that conict be-
tween activities at university and the mandatory practicum creates a
sense of having a high workload, and feelings of stress and dissatisfac-
tion among the students (NOKUT, 2022). Facilitating relatedness is an
important investment in order to build group cohesiveness,
well-internalized forms of motivation regulations, and academic
achievement (Escandell & Chu, 2021; Weinstein & DeHaan, 2014).
Further, our ndings suggested that relatedness frustration, manifested
as loneliness, seemed to be negative for the participants. The feeling of
loneliness was also driven by the students
′
experiencing in a fragmented
study program. The feeling of group unity is important and may be
achieved through well-organized programs, networks, and groups
(Pavlovic & Jeno, 2024; Leo et al., 2023).
4.2. Motivation
Our ndings suggest that the interaction between the needs for au-
tonomy and competence was important for the experience of autono-
mous motivation to be a student teacher or remaining on their program.
Underlying autonomous motivation was the inherent enjoyment or in-
terest in the subject or teaching profession, or feelings of mastery and
efcacy. Feelings of enjoyment, interest, mastery and efcacy, are the
experiential characteristics of autonomous and intrinsic motivation
(Deci, 1992). Students reported that when feeling basic needs satisfac-
tion, they experienced intrinsic and autonomous motivation. Autono-
mous motivation was also higher when the students perceived their
education as being more relevant, which is a sign of educational quality,
such as when they had their practicum. In contrast, the students who
experienced controlled motivation felt that their motivation was char-
acterized by pressure, feelings of compliance, and self-control. For some,
this resulted in uncertainty as to whether they even wanted to continue
as a teacher after nishing their education. This is concerning given that
this may have personal costs for the individual student and societal costs
in terms of the loss of future members of the workforce (Bakken, 2022;
OECD, 2019) and recruitment of future teachers (Eurydice, 2018).
4.3. Structural factors
Another major result was the high perceived workload. This was
particularly evident difference between students in their rst and fourth
years. This experience was mainly driven by the frustration of the psy-
chological need for competence, apparent from demanding expecta-
tions, high pressure, and workloads. Students in their fourth year, unlike
those in rst year, have practicum on top of regular courses (Elstad et al.,
2023), which may explain the differences between the study years. The
experience of feeling overly challenged or that activities were getting
too difcult were manifestations of the frustration of the need for
competence. This is in line with SDT arguments, which posit that it is
important to experience an optimal amount of challenge in order to feel
competence, as challenges that are too easy or too hard lead to feelings
of incompetence (Ryan & Deci, 2017). The feeling of being overly
challenged was also linked to how the students perceived the connection
between the topics. Specically, when there was poor organization, as
with the conict between exams and practicum, the students had a
perception that there was more work for them to manage and felt less
able and competent in terms of their achievement. Although the
perception among the student teachers was that they had a high work-
load, studies suggest that student teachers in general do not necessarily
work more than other students (Elstad et al., 2023). However, what may
contribute to this perception is the structure of the teacher education
program, which does not foster competence satisfaction. That is, expe-
riencing a lack of integration between the different subjects and prac-
ticum may lead to perceptions of a high workload, which does not lead
to a sense of competence or learning. The student teachers felt that they
are “spread out”, having practicum in remote areas which means long
travel distances. They put a lot of effort into planning and executing
teaching in their practical placement, but they do not get credits for this
work which is mandatory.
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8
5. Limitations and future directions
There are several considerations when interpreting our results. First,
our data analysis is based on a deductive approach and theoretical
constructs proposed by SDT research, in and outside of education. This
precludes us from drawing interpretations from other theoretical ap-
proaches or purely analyzing themes and subthemes based on the data.
It could be interesting to include other theoretical perspectives such as
self-efcacy (Watt et al., 2017) to understand how student teachers’
sense of self-efcacy could impact students’ experience of demanding
schedules, workload, and different forms of program conicts. Students
with a perceived belief in their capabilities learn or perform actions (i.e.,
self-efcacy) (Schunk & Pajares, 2009) may be able to better handle
challenges and setbacks in the teacher program. Future studies are
recommended to triangulate theoretical perspectives. In a similar vein,
analyzing our data from an inductive approach may have allowed for
other interesting ndings. For instance, some of our ndings point to the
debate on theory-practice in teacher education (Korthagen, 2010; Ulvik,
Riese, & Roness, 2018), which may relate specically to the dimension
of relevance in educational quality. Future inductive analyses may
discover relevant themes and subthemes pertaining to this debate.
Second, although we based our sample size on code saturation
(Hennink & Kaiser, 2022), a larger sample size may be warranted in
future studies that seek to understand more diverse experiences. In the
current study, we drew our sample size exclusively from students in their
rst and fourth years of the teacher program. Our decision on sample
size was made due to known differences in experiences and differences
in dropout rates and course structure. We nevertheless recommend that
future research include students from the entire program to further
understand the underlying mechanisms of basic psychological needs
satisfaction, motivation, and educational quality. This would ensure
“maximum variation” to uncover dynamics of motivational processes
that might impact education quality. Furthermore, a larger sample size
could also allow us to generalize the ndings to other teacher programs
or even other programs, contexts, and educational systems in general.
Third, our analysis was based solely on thematic analysis. Triangu-
lation of analytical approaches could have uncovered interesting nu-
ances not captured by the present analysis. For instance, case studies and
document analyses could have been interesting to further understand
educational quality, highlighting specically how educational quality is
conceptualized in educational and policy documents, and how this is
manifested at the classroom, program, and university level (Hatch,
2002; Yin, 2009). Furthermore, following the participants over a period
of time, either through video or observation, could have been an inter-
esting approach to further understand the experiences that both satisfy
and frustrate students’ psychological needs with regard to educational
quality.
Finally, our study operationalization of educational quality is based
on the legal denition in Norwegian higher education contexts. This
may also preclude us from generalizing the specic results from our
study to other contexts and higher education systems in other countries.
Given the variability of the concept of quality (e.g., Tam, 2001), our
approach has been to understand both the process and outcome aspects
of educational quality from the perspective of Self-Determination The-
ory. This could be potentially useful given that some dimensions of
quality may vary across subjects and elds of study (Gibbs, 2010). By
using SDT, we understand quality from a student-centered perspective
using the psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and related-
ness as organizing constructs (Ryan & Vansteenkiste, 2023). This allows
us to understand when and why students experience an instance or sit-
uation as conducive to quality. Future studies could broaden the concept
of educational quality to encompass country-specic denitions, but
also other theoretical operationalizations of educational quality.
6. Conclusion
The present study was conducted in order to understand student
teachers’ experiences of educational quality. The study was pre-
registered, an unusual step in the nascent qualitative SDT literature
and in teacher education literature in general. We believe pre-
registration ts well with the ontological assumptions of SDT (Ryan &
Niemiec, 2009), and does not preclude the iterative analytical process
that is an inherent strength to qualitative methodology. The results of
our study show that structural differences in educational programs affect
the experiential quality of the students. The deductive approach from an
SDT perspective also uncovered a number of interesting nuances as to
how programs can be designed or modied to better support students’
needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This was evident in
our analysis in terms of how the program was designed, as it impacted
students’ workload and feelings of wellness. For instance, creating a
space for students to experience a sense of integration and wholeness
within their teacher programs seems to be important for increasing their
sense of relatedness and reducing feelings of negative affectivity and
stress. This could be achieved through several means. For instance,
creating separate modules within each course dedicated to student
teachers might enable the students to understand the relevance of the
different courses and subjects for their specic teacher program.
Furthermore, a reorganization of the teacher program and proper
alignment of the different courses (e.g., didactics, pedagogy,
discipline-specic subjects, practicum) would result in less conict be-
tween practicum, courses and exams, as reported by the students, which
would add to the sense of integration.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Lucas M. Jeno: Writing – original draft, Methodology, Funding
acquisition, Formal analysis, Conceptualization. Chantal Levesque-
Bristol: Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Methodology. Jorun
Nylehn: Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Methodology. Zeljana
Pavlovic: Writing – review & editing, Methodology, Formal analysis.
Dag Roness: Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Methodology.
Netta Weinstein: Writing – review & editing, Supervision,
Methodology.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare no conicts of interest.
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the University of Bergen Humaniora
Strategy 2018-2022 for the project "The role of motivation in explaining
teacher students
′
study quality and dropout" awarded to the rst author.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2025.101354.
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