Study of latent motivational profiles associated with academic satisfaction and academic self-efficacy of university students

Abstract

Students who develop high degrees of self-determination to achieve learning, have a positive perception of their academic self-efficacy and high levels of satisfaction with academic experience. Therefore, it is necessary to establish which variables are directly related to the conformation of motivational profiles that affect learning processes. The aim of the study was to identify the latent motivational profiles of university students, assessing the relationships with satisfaction and academic self-efficacy. The participants were 437 university students. Subgroups identification was performed using latent profile analysis. The results supported the emergence of four motivational profiles: high quantity (n=84), low quality (n=28), low quantity (n=35), and high quality (n=290). These findings confirm that the groups with the highest degrees of self-determination for learning show the highest levels of academic satisfaction and academic self-efficacy.