Teacher Autonomy Support and Intellectual Risk Taking in Science Learning among Pupils: The Mediating Effects of Science Learning Interest and Creative Self-Efficacy

Abstract

Teacher autonomy support is about teachers’ instructional behavior that respects, support, and encourage students’ autonomy in learning, including providing them with behavioral and emotional support, appreciating their ideas, allowing them adequate free space in learning, inquiry, and choice-making, and more. Intellectual risk taking refers to the quality of being academically active in experimenting without concern about failure, a quality crucial to students’ science learning and creativity ability development. Creative self-efficacy is about the individual’s judgment on their capacities to generate creative ideas and solutions to problems. This article investigates the linkage between teacher autonomy support and student intellectual risk taking in science learning and examines the mediating effects of interest in science learning and creative self-efficacy.