Longitudinal relations between perceived autonomy and social support from teachers and students' self-regulated learning and achievement

Most research investigating the relation between perceived teacher support and self-regulated learning (SRL) is cross-sectional, and little is known about the direction of the effects. This longitudinal study investigated the direction of the effects between students' perceptions of autonomy support and social support from teacher on two behavioural aspects of SRL: delay of gratification and metacognitive strategy use. A second aim was to investigate the extent to which the effects of perceived teacher support on student achievement were mediated by SRL. Students (N = 701, age 12) completed questionnaires five times during their first 2 years in secondary education. Cross-lagged autoregressive models revealed small reciprocal effects in both directions between delay of gratification and perceived autonomy support. Metacognitive strategy use predicted perceived autonomy support and perceived social support from teachers predicted both aspects of SRL. The study revealed a small mediating effects from SRL between perceived teacher support and achievement.