162261 20251017144557.0 doi 10.1016/j.ijer.2025.102717 sideral 144901 ART-2025-144901 eng Bouten, Arne Chaotic (laissez-faire) teaching: The most harmful style for students’ psychological needs? 2025 Access copy available to the general public Unrestricted Self-Determination Theory (SDT) has been widely used to understand how different teaching styles impact student outcomes. Previous research has mainly focused on the negative effects of controlling teaching, while the influence of chaotic (laissez-faire) teaching has been less explored. This study examines how students' perceptions of highly chaotic (i.e., abandoning) and highly controlling (i.e., domineering) teaching approaches are related to the satisfaction and frustration of student basic psychological needs in secondary physical education (PE). The study involved 916 students in Belgium (58% girls; 15.37 ± 1.62 years old) and 1124 students in Spain (52% girls; 14.60 ± 1.51 years old). Using linear mixed-effects models, we found that both abandoning and domineering teaching approaches were adversely associated with students' basic psychological needs. The abandoning approach showed the strongest positive association with overall need frustration in both samples. Moreover, the abandoning approach was most strongly associated with competence and relatedness frustration in both countries, as well as with lower competence satisfaction in Spain. Both approaches showed a similar positive relationship with autonomy frustration. This study expands our understanding of demotivating teaching by demonstrating the harmful potential of highly chaotic teaching, beyond the well-known harmful effects of controlling teaching. The consistency of the findings across both countries highlights the international relevance of this research. These findings suggests that reducing highly chaotic (i.e., laissez-faire) teaching should be a priority in international educational practices and policies. Future research could investigate the causes, effects, and potential moderators of chaotic teaching to further guide educational policy and practice in different cultural contexts. info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/S01-24 info:eu-repo/semantics/embargoedAccess by-nc-nd https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.es info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion Diloy-Peña, Sergio Abós, Ángel Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0002-1543-5109 García-González, Luis Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0001-8115-0649 Haerens, Leen De Cocker, Katrien 3001 187 Universidad de Zaragoza Dpto. Expres.Music.Plást.Corp. Área Didáctica Expres.Corporal 133 (2025), 102717 [19 pp.] Int. j. educ. res. International Journal of Educational Research 0883-0355 2251955 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/162261/files/texto_completo.pdf Versión publicada info:eu-repo/date/embargoEnd/2027-07-18 1818047 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/162261/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon icon Versión publicada info:eu-repo/date/embargoEnd/2027-07-18 oai:zaguan.unizar.es:162261 articulos driver 2025-10-17-14:13:38 ARTICLE