Perceived motivational support in elementary school: Perceptual agreement and its associations with academic outcomes

Teacher-provided motivational support plays a critical role in students' academic outcomes. Unfortunately, elementary school students often feel that their needs are not being met. Teachers need to be aware of their students' perceptions of motivational support in order to adapt their teaching methods and increase their students' motivation and performance. To investigate the agreement between teachers' and students' perceptions of motivational support and its associations with academic outcomes, N = 49 teachers rated ten of their students' perceived autonomy, competence, and relatedness support. The results showed low perceptual agreement between teachers' and students' perceptions in all areas of motivational support. The highest discrepancy was found for perceived autonomy support. Teachers statistically significantly overestimated individual students' perceptions of autonomy support. Response surface analyses revealed that higher levels of perceptual agreement were associated with greater intrinsic reading motivation and higher reading performance. These findings underscore the importance of accurately monitoring motivational support. The investigation revealed that teachers often overestimate the level of motivational support that students perceive, especially with regard to autonomy support. These misperceptions may negatively affect students' academic outcomes. Both overestimation and underestimation of students' perceived competence and relatedness support were associated with lower reading performance. Therefore, teacher education programs must strengthen educators' ability to accurately identify and respond to individual students' perceptions. The systematic collection of student feedback is an effective strategy for aligning teachers' practices with students' perceptions, thereby enhancing instructional quality and supporting elementary school students' academic outcomes and well-being. • Perceptual agreement on motivational support was generally low. • Agreement was highest for perceived competence support. • Teachers overestimated students' perceived autonomy support. • Students' and teachers' perceptions of support were linked to intrinsic motivation. • Discrepancies in perceived support were linked to lower reading performance.