Influence of classroom motivational climate and teaching style on university students’ self-regulation and performance

Abstract

The teacher actions in classroom has important effects on students’ educational processes and performance, thus it is crucial to train teachers so that they implement the most efficient instructional strategies. This study explores the influence of the university instructional environment, defined by the Teaching Styles and the Classroom Motivational Climate, on the perception of motivational changes, emotion, and motivation self-regulation, academic performance, and how students’ initial motivational orientations mediate this influence. A total of 214 students from the faculty of Education of a Colombian university participated in the study. Three predictive models were analyzed. Results indicate, first, that motivational orientation mediates the perception of the instructional environment: avoidance orientation is associated with negative perception; second, both the Classroom Motivational Climate and the Teaching Style favor learning oriented motivation, learning-oriented emotion self-regulation style, and the students’ attribution of motivational changes to the teacher; third, Classroom Motivational Climate seems to mitigate avoidance oriented self-regulation style. Finally, the Teaching Style is the only variable that positively and significantly predicts academic performance.