The effects of instructor’s autonomy support on preservice early childhood teacher’s self-regulated learning efficacy: Mediated by self-determined motivation

This study explored to determine whether instructor's autonomy support influences preservice early childhood teachers' self-regulated learning efficacy and how teachers’ learning efficacy is shaped through their self-determined motivational styles of autonomous and controlled regulation. The responses of 463 undergraduate students majoring in early childhood education were analyzed. For data analysis, a fully mediated model and a partial mediated model were established, and the goodness of fit of the model was tested through covariate structural analysis. The results showed that the direct effect of instructor's autonomy support on students' self-regulated learning efficacy and the indirect effect through autonomous regulation were both significant, supporting the partial mediated model. This study suggests the need for professional development programs that consider the aspect of instructor's autonomy support as a way to improve preservice early childhood teachers' self-regulated learning efficacy.