Metacognitive regulation, basic psychological needs and subjective vitality of first year university students

Abstract

Intellectual performance is influenced by many factors, besides intelligence and cognitive skills, including the type of motivation and metacognitive regulation. The authors of the article became interested in the question of whether there is a connection between productivity of metacognitive regulation and different types of motivation (extrinsic and intrinsic). According to the self-determination theory (SDT), maintaining intrinsic (autonomous) motivation requires satisfying of one’s basic psychological needs. Also, SDT distinguishes the concepts of self-control and self-regulation (a particular case of which is metacognitive regulation) and postulates the existence of a connection between self-regulation and the level of subjective vitality. The aim of the study was to test the following hypothesis: the higher the level of satisfaction of three basic psychological needs and the level of subjective vitality, the higher the level of productivity of metacognitive regulation of intellectual performance. Participants (first year university students, n = 116, 70 men) completed Russian versions of two questionnaires, created inside the SDT paradigm: “Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale” and “Subjective Vitality Scale”. To assess the productivity of metacognitive regulation of intellectual activity, a new modified version of the questionnaire “Features of intellectual activity” (D. N. Makarova, M. V. Osorina) was used. Multiple regression analysis was performed using SPSS to test the hypothesis. The final model, which explains 31.4 % of the variance of the dependent variable, shows that the higher the level of subjective vitality and the levels of satisfaction of need in autonomy and competence, the higher the level of productivity of metacognitive regulation of intellectual performance. The proposed hypothesis was partly refuted: no relationship was found between the level of satisfaction of the need in relatedness and the level of productivity of metacognitive regulation.