need frustration

Academic motivation in physically demanding university programmes may be better understood by considering motivational quality rather than motivation quantity alone. This cross-sectional observational survey supplemented by structured content analysis examined relationships among basic psychological need satisfaction and frustration, autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, amotivation, continuation intention, and career commitment in first- and second-year students enrolled in Physical Education and Mountain Sports at Transilvania University of Brașov. Data were collected from 6 to 30 October 2025 after ethics approval, yielding a final analytical sample of 237 students. Participants completed the Academic Motivation Scale-College/University version, the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale, contextual and sport-related items, continuation and career indicators, and two open-ended prompts. Original open-ended answers were standardized into 50 motivation and 50 demotivation formulations and independently coded by both authors. Autonomous motivation averaged 5.04 (SD = 1.05), amotivation 2.40 (SD = 0.95), overall need satisfaction 3.72 (SD = 0.73), and overall need frustration 2.21 (SD = 0.76). Need satisfaction correlated strongly with autonomous motivation (Spearman ρ = 0.704), whereas need frustration correlated strongly with amotivation (ρ = 0.661). In adjusted models, need satisfaction was positively associated with autonomous motivation (β = 0.539, p < 0.001), and need frustration was positively associated with amotivation (β = 0.569, p < 0.001). Human coding agreement was high for motivation (92.0%, κ = 0.898) and demotivation (94.0%, κ = 0.927). Teaching/prosocial impact was the most frequent motivation category (33.8%), while curriculum/teaching/assessment was the most frequent demotivation category (23.6%). Overall, self-reported need satisfaction and frustration were differentially associated with motivational quality in this cohort, but the cross-sectional, single-faculty design precludes causal or population-level conclusions.

Background Most person-centered research on exercise motivation has identified static profiles, leaving unclear how motivational configurations change over time, what psychological experiences are associated with those changes, and whether transitions predict subsequent exercise. This study examined the short-term mobility of exercise-regulation profiles, psychological-need predictors of specific transitions, and their prospective associations with later leisure-time exercise. Methods A three-wave prospective study followed 1,780 students from six Chinese colleges at approximately 4-week intervals. Exercise regulation, exercise-specific psychological need satisfaction and frustration, and leisure-time exercise were assessed at each wave. Continuous-indicator latent transition analysis identified longitudinal motivational profiles and transition probabilities. Posterior-probability-weighted models examined origin-wave need satisfaction and frustration as predictors of eligible transitions and tested whether first-interval transitions were associated with final-wave exercise after prior exercise was considered. Results Six profiles were retained: amotivated–controlled, low-regulation, mixed intrinsic–controlled, identified-dominant, intrinsic-dominant, and high autonomous–introjected. Overall profile stability was substantial but incomplete, with 76.9 and 73.8% of posterior transition mass remaining on the stability diagonal across the two intervals. The largest off-diagonal transition was from low regulation to high autonomous–introjected motivation (18.0 and 20.1%). After Holm correction, greater need satisfaction was associated with lower odds of moving from intrinsic-dominant or high autonomous–introjected motivation to low regulation (odds ratios = 0.47–0.49), whereas greater need frustration was associated with lower odds of moving from low regulation to identified- or intrinsic-dominant profiles (odds ratios = 0.41–0.62). In models controlling baseline exercise, movement from amotivated–controlled or low regulation to high autonomous–introjected motivation was associated with greater subsequent exercise, whereas several transitions toward less internalized configurations were associated with lower exercise. After additional adjustment for exercise measured at the transition endpoint, only the low-regulation-to-high autonomous–introjected transition remained significant. Conclusion Exercise motivation was substantially stable yet meaningfully mobile over short periods. Psychological-need experiences were associated with specific, origin-dependent motivational transitions, and selected transitions prospectively differentiated later exercise behavior. The findings support a dynamic and state-dependent view of exercise motivation and suggest that the psychological conditions relevant to maintaining internalized motivation may differ from those involved in moving out of low regulation.

Frustration of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness undermines student wellbeing, yet most research treats the three needs as separate continuous predictors, obscuring how they combine within individual students. Taking a person-centred approach, this study identified profiles of need frustration among 607 undergraduates in English-medium instruction (EMI) programmes in Saudi Arabia and examined how the profiles related to school belonging and to personal (emotional–academic) and social wellbeing. Latent profile analysis of the three frustration dimensions yielded five profiles: two large profiles distinguished mainly by overall severity (low and mild frustration) and three smaller, configurally distinct profiles characterised by pervasive–relational frustration, acute competence frustration, and a relatedness-spared agentic frustration. The profiles differed substantially in belonging, personal wellbeing, and social wellbeing, and the content of frustration corresponded to the domain most affected: relatedness frustration accompanied the lowest social wellbeing, whereas autonomy and competence frustration accompanied the lowest personal wellbeing. Profile membership was largely independent of gender, major, and English-exposure category, with only a weak association with year of study. These findings characterise the heterogeneity of need frustration in EMI—most students differing in overall severity and a minority in configuration—and offer a provisional, descriptive basis for identifying and supporting students whose frustration is concentrated in particular needs.

ناکامی نیازهای روان‌شناختی پایه برای خودمختاری، شایستگی و ارتباط، بهزیستی دانشجویان را تضعیف می‌کند، با این حال بیشتر پژوهش‌ها این سه نیاز را به‌عنوان پیش‌بین‌های پیوسته و جداگانه در نظر می‌گیرند و نحوه ترکیب آن‌ها درون دانشجویان را پنهان می‌سازند. این مطالعه با اتخاذ رویکرد فردمحور، الگوهای ناکامی نیاز را در میان ۶۰۷ دانشجوی کارشناسی در برنامه‌های آموزش با زبان انگلیسی (EMI) در عربستان سعودی شناسایی کرد و بررسی نمود که این الگوها چگونه با تعلق به مدرسه و بهزیستی فردی (هیجانی–تحصیلی) و اجتماعی مرتبط هستند. تحلیل الگوی نهفته سه بعد ناکامی، پنج الگو را نشان داد: دو الگوی بزرگ که عمدتاً بر اساس شدت کلی (ناکامی پایین و ملایم) متمایز می‌شوند و سه الگوی کوچک‌تر با پیکربندی متمایز شامل ناکامی فراگیر–ارتباطی، ناکامی شدید شایستگی و ناکامی عاملیت با حفظ ارتباط. الگوها از نظر تعلق، بهزیستی فردی و بهزیستی اجتماعی تفاوت قابل توجهی داشتند و محتوای ناکامی با حوزه‌ای که بیشترین تأثیر را پذیرفته بود مطابقت داشت: ناکامی ارتباطی با پایین‌ترین بهزیستی اجتماعی همراه بود، در حالی که ناکامی خودمختاری و شایستگی با پایین‌ترین بهزیستی فردی همراه بود. عضویت در الگوها تا حد زیادی مستقل از جنسیت، رشته تحصیلی و دسته‌بندی میزان مواجهه با زبان انگلیسی بود و تنها ارتباط ضعیفی با سال تحصیلی داشت. این یافته‌ها ناهمگونی ناکامی نیاز در EMI را توصیف می‌کنند—اکثر دانشجویان از نظر شدت کلی و اقلیتی از نظر پیکربندی متفاوت هستند—و مبنایی توصیفی و مقدماتی برای شناسایی و حمایت از دانشجویانی که ناکامی آن‌ها در نیازهای خاصی متمرکز است، ارائه می‌دهند.