Autonomous motivation explains interprofessional education outcomes

Objectives In response to the observations that interprofessional education (IPE) is seemingly atheoretical or under-theorised, this quantitative research seeks to uncover students' motivational mechanisms which could explain their behavioral and collaborative outcomes using self-determination theory (SDT). While SDT has been studied in various contexts, its applicability to IPE remains underexplored. This study aims to integrate a new perspective in understanding students' motivation in IPE by exploring how the fulfillment of a need for sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness is linked to desirable IPE outcomes. Methods Utilising quantitative methods, we involved 255 healthcare students in Hong Kong from the medical, nursing, and pharmacy disciplines enrolled in IPE anticoagulation therapy module. They were invited to respond to the Psychological Need Satisfaction Questionnaire and other measures as part of the post-test. Results Sense of autonomy emerged as the strongest positive predictor of behavioral (collective dedication, behavioral engagement) and collaboration outcomes (team effectiveness, goal achievement). There were no significant program-level differences across these outcomes except for behavioural engagement for which nursing students had a higher perception than medicine students. Conclusions We were able to demonstrate that SDT is a meaningful framework in understanding behavioral and collaboration outcomes in IPE. The major theoretical contribution of this study refers to the ability of students' motivation to explain variance in their behavioral outcomes. That is, sense of autonomy consistently predicted team effectiveness, collective dedication, behavioral engagement, and goal achievement. Autonomous motivation among a sample of healthcare students can explain behavioral outcomes. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed.