Teacher Autonomy Support in Physical Education Classes as a Predictor of Motivation and Concentration in Mexican Students

Abstract

There is a strong belief that physical education can affect an individual's physical activity, healthy habits, and behaviors through pleasant, positive, and significant exercise experiences, a practical knowledge base, and comprehensive teaching strategies. However, a crucial cognitive aspect for the effective and significant learning of the activities offered in the educational environment is the concentration of students. This study aims to test a hypothetical model based on self-determination theory to assess the degree of support prediction provided by the teacher for student autonomy in the various types of motivation and on student concentration in physical education classes in high schools within the Mexican context and test invariance across gender groups. This study included 859 students between 11 and 16 years from different high schools in the city of San Nicolás de los Garza, Nuevo León (México). The Learning Climate Questionnaire, the Perceived Locus of Causality, and the Concentration scale adapted to physical education and translated into Mexican Spanish were used. Results showed good internal consistency for all instruments. Both the measurement model and the structural equation modeling showed satisfactory adjustment indexes. The results revealed that the autonomy support positively predicted autonomous motivation, controlled motivation to a lesser extent, and amotivation negatively. Furthermore, the students' concentration was highly and positively predicted by autonomous motivation, by controlled motivation to a lesser extent, and by amotivation negatively. The model predicted 39% of variance of autonomous motivation with large effect size (ƒ 2 = 0.64), 2% of controlled motivation with small effect size (ƒ 2 = 0.02), 8% of amotivation with small effect size (ƒ 2 = 0.09), and 49% of concentration with large effect size (ƒ 2 = 0.96). Finally, the invariance analysis revealed that the model fit was invariant across gender groups. The results of this study emphasize how important it is for teachers to adopt an interpersonal style of autonomy support to generate a motivational climate that influences the concentration of students. This could contribute to the achievement of the purposes and educational objectives of the physical education class, which, in turn, might be conducive to students adopting healthy lifestyles in adolescence and beyond.

Chinese College Students' Perceived Teacher Autonomy Support and Engagement: A Moderated Mediation Model

“…According to the SDT, it is known that PAS in class leads to students' psychological changes, which, in turn, affects students' engagement in learning (Burkley & Burkley, 2018). Also, some studies have shown that secondary school students' PAS significantly affects LM and SE (Jang et al, 2009;Maldonado et al, 2019;Ryan & Patrick, 2001). In addition, Ryan and Deci (2020) indicated that the high LM of students could promote their engagement and academic performance.…”

“…Students' satisfaction with autonomy support increases engagement in learning, intrinsic motivation, skill development, academic achievement, vitality, and well-being (Reeve & Cheon, 2021). In recent years, PAS has drawn scholars' attention (Black & Deci, 2000;Maldonado et al, 2019;Reeve & Cheon, 2021) with past study having found that PAS significantly impacts SE (Fredricks et al, 2019;Jang et al, 2010;Li, 2020;Wang et al, 2017). Gutiérrez and Tomás (2019) suggested that college students' PAS had a significant direct influence on SE, which predicted school satisfaction and academic achievement.…”

Formative Evaluation of a Home-Based Physical Activity Intervention for Adolescent Girls—The HERizon Project: A Randomised Controlled Trial

“…SDT postulates that for optimal well-being and autonomous motivation, three basic psychological needs must be met—autonomy (the feeling that behaviour is volitional and self-directed), relatedness (a sense of belonging and connectedness to others) and competence (perceived capability of maintaining and enhancing current skills and achieving desired objectives) [ 34 ]. Past research has shown that adolescent PA can be improved when these basic needs are met [ 35 , 36 ], thus the HERizon Project intervention was developed utilising the SDT framework.…”

Development and preliminary validation of the Sport Situation Attentional Questionnaire

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Introduction28 The ability to be attentive has been widely regarded as a major prerequisite in motor learning 29 (Wulf & Lewthwaite, 2016), whether in a sport (Moran, 2016) or an educational context 30 where physical activities are taught (Standage et al, 2005). However, sport participants can 31 experience difficulties in turning their attention on sport situation (Maldonado et al, 2019; 32 Moran, 2016). Less is known on how to optimize attention during a sport situation.

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“…Moran, 49 2016) and physical education (PE; e.g. Maldonado et al, 2019). In contrast, distraction was 50 defined as a diversion of attention from some intended targets (Moran, 2016).…”