Latent Classes of Basic Psychological Need Changes of Elementary School Students and Their Differences in Learning

Purpose: In this study, we aimed to classify elementary school students considering the changes in basicpsychological need satisfaction and to examine the differences in achievement emotions, self-monitoring,and academic achievement depending on the classification. We sought to identify what basic psychologicalneeds are critical in classifying these students and how the students classified into each class were differentin styles of learning. Methods: We analyzed the data of 179 sixth graders, which was collected once a week for fiveweeks during science classes in the spring semester of 2019. We classified the students simultaneouslyconsidering the changes in autonomy, competence, and relatedness satisfaction using multidimensionalgrowth mixed modeling. We also examined predictive and outcome variables. Results: Students were classified into three latent classes named Class 1 (normal level/stable; 70%),Class 2 (high level/increasing; 22%), and Class 3 (normal level/decreasing in competence; 8%). Thestudents showed stable, increasing, or decreasing patterns in competence satisfaction depending ontheir latent class, while all students showed relatively high levels of autonomy and relatednesssatisfaction. The students of Class 2 generally showed positive patterns in terms of achievementemotions and self-monitoring. Though the differences between Class 1 and Class 3 were minimal,at some time points, Class 3 was worse in terms of achievement emotions while Class 1 was worsein terms of self-monitoring. Conclusion: This study showed that changes in competence satisfaction were critical in classifyingelementary school students. This could be because of the characteristics of science classes in the uppergrades of elementary school when this study was conducted. In the light and lens unit, because therewere many group activities and student-led experiments, students could experience high levels ofautonomy and relatedness. However, because of these characteristics, some students could perceivethis type of classes as being difficult and burdensome and therefore experience persistent competencefrustration. Appropriate guidance and feedback are thus important to have those students experiencecompetence satisfaction.