School social climate and personal and social responsiblity of high school students in secondary school according to their motivational profile

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to analyze the motivational profile of high school students and how it was related to responsibility, basic psychological needs and school social climate, as well as to assess gender differences. For this purpose, a total sample of 302 students (M = 14.48; SD = 1.40) participated and were administered a multiple-choice questionnaire, where, in turn, gender and date of birth were asked. A profile analysis was performance using Ward’s method and k-means using the motivation scale (intrinsic motivation, identified, introjected and external regulation, amotivation) as variables for its elaboration. Two cluster profiles were finally created and named: a) “high motivation and low amotivation” (n = 212); b) “low motivation and high amotivation” (n = 95).  Next, a multivariate analysis was performed, which showed that high motivation profile had statistically significant results at p < .001, higher in the satisfaction of the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness, personal and social responsibility and school social climate. On the other hand, attending to gender, no significant differences were found in the number of students in the profiles after analyzing the standardized residuals. It is concluded that an increase in self-determined motivation can be associated to an improvement in basic psychological needs, responsibility and school social climate, regardless of the student’s gender.