Basic psychological needs and well-being in teaching in basic education

Abstract

To analyze the positions of teachers who work in basic education regarding basic psychological needs and understand what definitions they attribute to the sense of autonomy, competence and belonging and their relationship with well-being in teaching. Methodology: qualitative and quantitative research, through the application of a questionnaire, sent by email, via Google Forms. The original questionnaire was subdivided into three axes, the first and part of the third being adopted for discussion and analysis. The first axis comprises issues relevant to the socio-demographic and labor context. The third axis, composed of five discursive questions, three of them related to basic psychological needs and, therefore, used in the present discussion. The collected data were analyzed through the bias of content analysis. Eighty-three teachers from the municipal public network of a city located in the northwest of the state of Rio Grande do Sul participated in the study, which is equivalent to 44.6% of the total number of municipal teachers working in the classroom in this municipality. Results indicate satisfactory levels of well-being, especially basic psychological needs (belonging, competence and autonomy). It is concluded that the emphasis on basic psychological needs made it possible to understand that teacher well-being needs to be a purpose of the entire school community, articulating the different segments in the organization of educational institutions and systems, in order to provide the experience of a sense of autonomy , competence and belonging in the context of teaching.