The mediating role of personal best goals between basic psychological needs and student engagement

Informed by self-determination theory (SDT), this study addressed the paucity of research into student engagement within the Malaysian higher education by examining the
mechanism by which the basic psychological need for autonomy, competence, relatedness, and novelty can influence students’ engagement through promoting personal best (PB) goals. The main objective of this study was to determine the role of PB goals as a plausible mediating variable between the four basic psychological needs and student engagement. A cross-sectional research design was employed. Data was collected from a total sample of 743 undergraduate students from three public universities in northern Malaysia. Hypothesized relationships were tested using structural equation modeling via AMOS version 23. The current study established the validity of the survey in Bahasa Malaysia for the measures through confirmatory factor analysis. Furthermore, results revealed that autonomy, competence, relatedness, and novelty were positively and significantly associated with student engagement. Besides, there were significant indirect effects through PB goals from basic needs for competence, relatedness, and novelty to student engagement. However, PB goals did not mediate the relationship between the need for autonomy and student engagement. These results provide a new understanding on the importance of the basic need for novelty alongside existing needs in SDT. They also offer
insights on the PB goals as one mechanism of which the basic needs may associate with student engagement. In addition, these results provide insightful practices to establish the
motivational learning environment that vitalize students’ engagement and enhance their academic growth in the Malaysian higher education contexts.