Examining the relationship between academic stress and motivation toward physical education within a semester: A two-wave study with Chinese secondary school students

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between academic stress and motivation toward physical education (PE) through a longitudinal design with cross-lagged panel analyses. A sample of 556 Chinese secondary school students participated in the research and completed Perceived Locus of Causality Scale and Educational Stress Scale for Adolescents at the beginning of the semester and 3 months later. The results demonstrated that academic stress factors were positively related to less self-determined motivations except that worry about grades was positively related to more self-determined motivations within each time point. In addition, we found that academic stress negatively predicted more self-determined motivations but positively predicted less self-determined motivations, whereas worry about grades negatively predicted amotivation 3 months later. Meanwhile, the influence of amotivation on despondency was also found. These results suggest that academic stress can obstruct students’ participation in PE through an impact on self-determined motivation. Our findings also indicate that self-determined students in PE will seek academic achievement as well, which in turn improves students’ academic status.

Bidirectional associations between maternal homework involvement, adolescents’ academic motivation, and school well-being.

“…Following OIT, it was expected that high autonomy support would predict adolescents’ increased school satisfaction and decreased school-related stress, both directly and indirectly, via higher intrinsic motivation (Hypothesis 1a; Chirkov & Ryan, 2001; Dettmers et al, 2019; Ryan & Deci, 2017; Yotyodying, 2012). We also expected that high psychological control would predict increased school-related stress and deceased school satisfaction, both directly and indirectly, via higher amotivation (Hypothesis 1b; Baker, 2004; Ryan & Deci, 2017; Yang et al, 2022). To what extent adolescents’ school well-being predicts the quality of maternal homework involvement across the transitions to lower and upper secondary school?…”

“…It has been suggested that students’ school well-being plays a role in their academic motivation (Liu, 2015; Yang et al, 2022). For example, Yang et al (2022) found that adolescents’ academic stress was negatively related to their autonomous forms of motivation and positively related to their amotivation.…”

“…It has been suggested that students’ school well-being plays a role in their academic motivation (Liu, 2015; Yang et al, 2022). For example, Yang et al (2022) found that adolescents’ academic stress was negatively related to their autonomous forms of motivation and positively related to their amotivation. Returning to SDT, adolescents’ school well-being might contribute to their academic motivation, which, in turn, may elicit different responses from parents in homework situations (Dumont et al, 2014; Ryan & Deci, 2017).…”

“…For example, adolescents who experience high levels of school-related stress might also perceive themselves as having little control over schoolwork (Baker, 2004; Liu, 2015) and experience incompetence in meeting academic demands. This may lead to amotivation and a lack of engagement in homework, which, in turn, may elicit high psychological control from parents (Dumont et al, 2014; Raufelder et al, 2015; Yang et al, 2022). Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, no previous study has examined the role of adolescents’ motivation as a mediator of the associations between school well-being and parental homework involvement.…”

“…Due to the lack of previous studies, we could not establish exact hypotheses. However, we considered it possible that higher levels of school-related stress and lower levels of school satisfaction could indirectly predict higher psychological control via higher amotivation and lower intrinsic motivation (Hypothesis 2; Dumont et al, 2014; Ryan & Deci, 2017; Yang et al, 2022).…”