Profiles of basic psychological need frustration and their associations with belonging and wellbeing among Saudi undergraduates in English-medium instruction

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.