An Autonomy-Supportive Intervention on Physical Education Motivation and Physical Activity

Background/Purpose: Although the health benefits of physical activity (PA) are well demonstrated, the majority of adolescents in the United States do not participate in the recommended amounts of PA. Although the important role of schools and physical education (PE) in contributing to population health has been identified, there is a lack of studies to test the effectiveness of school PE programs in adolescents’ physical activity (PA) behavior. Thus, evolving from the current state of affairs and grounded in the trans-contextual model framework, the purpose of the study was to test the treatment effect of an implemented PE teacher training program in middle school students’ PE and exercise motivation along with out-of-school PA in the Greater Memphis, TN area.

Method: The study involved designing, implementing, and evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention to facilitate autonomy-supportive teaching practices in PE. A cluster-randomized controlled sample of six schools, 19 PE classes, 12 PE teachers, and 413 students (11 to 14 years) were assigned to the experiment and delayed-treatment control conditions. Changes in students’ self-report perceptions of PE class autonomy, PE motivation, exercise motivation, PA intentions, and PA were tracked across a 6-week multi-sport PE unit. In addition, treatment fidelity was assessed by observing PE teachers’ teaching practices and evaluating accelerometer-assessed in-class PA.

Analysis/Results: Preliminary analyses using the analysis of covariance showed that there was a significant intervention effect on autonomy-support in PE (F[2,407] = 38.29, p < .001, η² = .09), PE autonomy (F[2,407] = 23.70, p < .001, η² = .06), and PA (F[2,407] = 23.20, p < .001, η² = .06). The examination of the pre- and post-test values showed that whereas control group students’ autonomy-support in PE, PE autonomy, and PA declined, experiment group mean values stayed either stable (PE autonomy & PA) or increased (PE autonomy-support). Path analyses showed that intervention had a positive effect on students’ PE motivation through their perception of autonomy-support. In addition, the roles of exercise motivation and PA intentions were highlighted as they transferred motivational experiences in PE to out-of-school context, explaining 30% of the variance in PA participation.

Conclusions: The study makes a unique contribution to the existing literature by providing evidence on how motivational experiences in PE may transfer to exercise motivation and PA participation. It is concluded that trans-contextual model provides a useful framework for the development of PE interventions that increase students’ PE motivation and ultimately affect their PA participation.