Evaluating the Psychometric Properties of a Scale to Measure Perceived External and Internal Faces of Controlling Teaching among Students in Physical Education

The Effects of a Web-Based Need-Supportive Intervention for Physical Education Teachers on Students' Physical Activity and Related Outcomes: A Randomized Controlled Trial

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES

Globally, adolescents are insufficiently active, highlighting the need for effective strategies to enhance their activity levels. This study evaluated a web-based intervention program designed for physical education (PE) teachers, aimed at fostering students' basic psychological needs-autonomy, competence, and relatedness-in PE settings.

METHODS

Secondary school PE teachers and their students were randomly assigned into either an experimental (teachers n = 36; students n = 463, Mage = 13.94, SD = 0.88) or a control group (teachers n = 49; students n = 820, Mage = 13.93, SD = 0.87). Teachers in the experimental group underwent a 4-week web-based intervention program focused on autonomy-, competence-, and relatedness-supportive motivational techniques. Students completed questionnaires assessing psychological measures and self-reported physical activity (PA) before and after the teachers' training.

RESULTS

Results indicated that students in the experimental group perceived significantly higher autonomy, competence, and relatedness support compared to their control group counterparts at post-test.

CONCLUSIONS

Consequently, the web-based need-supportive intervention was effective in promoting need-supportive teacher behavior. As the developed training for PE teachers increased students' perceptions of need support from their PE teachers, it holds promise for future PE teacher education. Furthermore, the web-based format offers scalability for broader implementation.

The effect of perceived teachers' interpersonal behavior on students' learning in physical education: a systematic review

The primary purpose of this study was to conduct the first systematic review on teachers' interpersonal behaviors and students' learning within the physical education context. We searched the English literature in the EBSCOhost, Web of Science, SCOPUS and PubMed electronic databases and following screening, data extraction, quality assessment, 35 published articles were included in this review. The results showed that: perceived teachers' supportive behaviors have effect on autonomous motivation of students, and perceived teachers' controlling behaviors have effect on students' controlling motivation and amotivation, the influencing mechanism may be that teachers' interpersonal teaching behaviors make students' basic psychological needs satisfaction or frustration; perceived teachers' international behaviors have effect on PE learning emotion of students, and perceiving teachers' supportive behaviors can trigger students' positive learning emotion, on the contrary, perceiving teachers' controlling behaviors can stimulate students' negative learning emotion; teachers' interpersonal behaviors have effect on students' psychological well-being and physical activity levels in class with the evidence insufficient, and more evidence are needed. It is extremely necessary to expand such study direction and strengthen better quality study to explore the effect of teachers' interpersonal behaviors on learning process and learning outcome in physical education class, and examine the indirect influence mechanism through that the relationship is connected. The present review provides preliminary evidence to enhance the quality of physical education teaching in class, promote students' academic performance by intervening teachers' interpersonal behaviors.

Perceived Physical Education Teachers' Controlling Behaviour and Students' Physical Activity during Leisure Time-The Dark Side of the Trans-Contextual Model of Motivation

Background: Previous studies have shown that the controlling behaviour of physical education teachers might be detrimental to their students’ psychological experiences. The purpose of this work was to examine whether and to what extent the different dimensions of the perceived controlling teaching questionnaire predict students’ basic psychological needs, motivations, and physical activities during leisure-time. Methods: A total of 299 students (164 boys and 135 girls) from four Estonian general education schools and two vocational education institutions participated in the study. Students filled in the questionnaire of study variables. A variance-based structural model was used to test the research hypotheses. Results: The results revealed that different forms of controlling behaviours predicted psychological need frustration (β = 0.09−0.37; p < 0.01). Psychological need frustration predicted controlled motivation (β = 0.52; p < 0.01). Controlled motivation predicted subjective norms (β = 0.51; p < 0.01). Intention was predicted by attitudes (β = 0.30; p < 0.01), perceived behavioural control (β = 0.37; p < 0.01), and subjective norms (β = 0.15; p < 0. 01). Attitude was statistically significantly related to leisure-time physical activity (β = 0.09; p < 0.05). The model describes 10% of students’ physical activity in the context of leisure-time. Conclusion: The results of this study highlight that physical education teachers should avoid using controlling behaviours if the aim is to avoid frustrating their students’ psychological needs, which might have detrimental effect on students’ leisure-time physical activity via controlled forms of motivation.

Web-Based and Face-To-Face Autonomy-Supportive Intervention for Physical Education Teachers and Students' Experiences

The most of the previous autonomy-supportive interventions conducted have been partially effective and used only web-based or face-to-face approach. In the current study, a combined web-based and face-to-face intervention for physical education (PE) teachers was tested to examine whether it would lead to significant changes in students' self-reports of autonomy-supportive and controlling behaviours, psychological need satisfaction and frustration, and intrinsic motivation. Participants were 57 PE teachers (Mage = 45.70, SD = 12.79) and their 858 middle-school students (Mage = 13.22, SD = 0.75). A randomized controlled design was adopted in which PE teachers and their students were assigned to the combined face-to-face and web-based, face-to-face alone, web-based alone or control group. Face-to-face intervention was provided to PE teachers within one day in an 8-hour workshop and web-based intervention was provided to PE teachers for a period of four weeks. The combined face-to-face and web-based intervention group was the only study group that demonstrated statistically significant changes in all the study variables (i.e., significant increase in cognitive, organisational, and procedural autonomy-supportive behaviour, in psychological need satisfaction for autonomy, competence and relatedness, and in intrinsic motivation, whereas significant decrease in intimidation, controlling use of grades, and negative conditional regard, and in psychological need frustration for autonomy, competence, and relatedness) compared to the control group at a one-month follow-up. There were no significant differences in any of the study variable, except organisational autonomy support and intimidation, between the web-based intervention group and face-to-face intervention group. Both web-based and face-to-face study group students reported significant gains in most of the study variables compared to the control group students at a one-month follow-up. The current findings suggest that future autonomy-supportive interventions for PE teachers should aim to use combined interventions of face-to-face and web-based approach to gain the greatest intervention effects.