Satisfaction of psychological needs, resilience, confidence and willingness to communicate in English of secondary school students

Abstract

In recent years, educational policies have focused on promoting bilingualism in schools. This brings with it new challenges for the consolidation of communicative habits and English language proficiency among students. Thus, the aim of this study is to analyse the influence of psychological needs satisfaction on students' resilience and confidence in exhibiting communicative intention. The participants in the study were 786 secondary school students (406 were boys and 380 were girls). The analyses employed in the study were reliability analyses, descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation and bivariate correlations) and structural equation modelling. The results revealed that satisfaction of psychological needs was positively associated with resilience and confidence. Furthermore, resilience was positively associated with willingness to communicate in English. These results can help to foster teaching strategies and design educational programmes that strengthen students' abilities, skills and confidence for everyday English language use in the classroom and in other contexts.

Keywords

• Satisfaction of psychological needs
• Confidence
• Resilience
• Communicative intention
• English