The present study aimed to examine the relationship among PE climate (i.e. autonomy support, relatedness support, task-involving climate and ego-involving climate), three basic psychological needs (i.e. autonomy, competence and relatedness), self-determined motivation and MVPA of secondary school students. Findings showed that the autonomy support and task-involving climate students perceived were positively related to all three psychological needs, whereas relatedness support positively predicted autonomy and relatedness, and ego-involving climate was only positively related to competence. Autonomy, competence and relatedness are positively associated with self-determined motivation towards MVPA. Finally, self-determined motivation positively predicted the MVPA of secondary school students.
Self-determined motivation
Results of the present study indicated that the self-determined motivation of secondary school student was positively related to their MVPA during PE. This finding supported our first hypothesis. This finding was also consistent with the tenet of SDT [22] and previous studies in PE context [15, 17, 48]. However, the findings of the present study showed that self-determined motivation only accounted for 1.4% of the variance in student MVPA. This was lower than the results of previous studies under the PE context, ranging from 2% to 4% [15, 17, 48]. The nature of the Chinese PE curriculum and Chinese educational culture may contribute to the low interpretation rate of variance in student MVPA. Firstly, the Chinese PE curriculum is compulsory, and each student must attend PE classes. Moreover, the class content and PE activities are arranged by secondary schools and teachers, and students cannot choose activities in PE class. Therefore, student motivation is a non-factor in PE classes, possibly resulting in the small contribution of self-determined motivation to student MVPA. Secondly, education in China is based on Confucian principles, which have educated students to be obedient and place emphasis on self-control and personal restraint [49, 50]. This practice may lead to students’ lack of knowledge of their own motivation and interests, thus weakening the effect of their self-determined motivation on their MVPA participation. Although self-determined motivation only explained 1.4% of the variance in student MVPA, it remained important, as students with self-determined motivation were likely to continue to participate in MVPA out of the PE class [26, 27]. On the basis of this finding, PE teachers are advised to adopt instructional strategies (e.g. cooperative learning; Supportive, Active, Autonomous, Fair, Enjoyable [SAAFE] teaching principles [51]) and activities to stimulate students’ interest and improve students’ self-determined motivation, which ultimately enhances MVPA in PE.
Psychological needs
Results showed that the three psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness positively predicted self-determined motivation. Therefore, when students perceived more competence to exhibit their sport skills, had more opportunities to determine and were more connected with classmates in PE classes they are more likely to be intrinsically motivated to participate in MVPA [24, 27, 29, 31, 35, 36, 52, 53]. Furthermore, the satisfaction of the three psychological needs mediated the relationship between the PE climate created by teachers and self-determined motivation, which was consistent with the tenet of SDT [22]. The importance of the psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness were suggested by the direct and indirect relationships. The fourth hypothesis was partly supported. The findings suggested that PE teachers may provide students with opportunities to cooperate in PE classes (relatedness), give choices to students and involve them in the decision-making process (autonomy) and provide students with more positive experiences for learning and mastering various motor skills (perceived competence) to motivate them to engage in PE activities.
Relatedness was the strongest predictor of self-determined motivation among the three psychological needs in this study. This finding was consistent with the studies of Standage et al. [24] and Cox et al. [53], but it was different from other studies [29, 42, 52] that found perceived competence as the most important variable to self-determined motivation. Deci and Ryan [21, 22] argued that the relative effect of each psychological need satisfaction on self-determined motivation may vary depending on the functional significance of the context. The strongest influence of relatedness may be related to the emphasis of PE on student cooperation in China. The Chinese Curriculum Standard for Physical Education and Health of the primary and middle schools indicated that one of the objectives of the PE curriculum was to develop student social adaption [54]. Pedagogical models that addressed student collaboration (e.g. cooperative learning approach) were recommended to PE teachers to develop students’ collectivism and cooperative consciousness [54]. More opportunities were provided for students to interact with peers in PE classes. These opportunities possibly allowed them to find PE fun and exciting and ultimately encouraged them to participate in PE activities. The low importance of student autonomy and competence in SDT in this study is also understandable because of students’ insufficient autonomy in PE classes and the weakening importance of sports skills and sports performance in the current PE learning assessment system [54].
Influence of PE climate
The finding of this study showed that autonomy support positively predicted the three psychological needs. Specifically, students felt autonomous, competent, and related when perceiving autonomy support with low control. This finding supported the third hypothesis and was congruent with previous studies in the context of PE [29, 30]. Furthermore, the magnitude of the standardised regression coefficients from autonomy support to the three psychological needs was the highest among the four types of classroom climate, suggesting that autonomy support mostly influenced the satisfaction of the three psychological needs. However, the Chinese traditional teaching style was authoritarian or controlling in PE classes [55]. The mean score of student perceptions of autonomy support climate was lower than that of relatedness support and task-involving climates in our study, thus confirmed this fact.
With regard to relatedness support, research findings indicated that student learning in a PE environment where good relationship among students were established felt more autonomous and related in PE, which was consistent with previous research [53]. Unlike the third hypothesis, the path from relatedness support to student competence was nonsignificant, revealing that the relatedness support PE teachers created could not predict student perception of competence in PE. The possible reason was that the harmonious relationship and emphasis on cooperation among students may weaken competition among students [56], distracting student attention from their competence and performance in PE.
Research findings showed that the student perception of task-involving climate was positively and significantly related to psychological need satisfaction of autonomy, competence and relatedness. Students felt more autonomous, competent, and related when they perceived that PE teachers emphasised their effort and self-reference on success or progress. These findings were aligned with previous study in the context of PE [35] and sports [57]. However, unlike the third hypothesis, the results showed that ego-involving climate was positively associated with competence and not significantly related to autonomy and relatedness. Such climate resulted in competition among students, which may help improve their sports competence [58]. The nonsignificant influence of ego-involving climate on relatedness and autonomy was also accepted because this type of climate does not address student connectedness and autonomy.
Given the importance of motivational climate on autonomy, competence and relatedness, a class climate that focuses on autonomy, competence and relatedness of students is needed to promote student psychological needs. PE teachers should provide autonomy support and are suggested to exert effort in giving students more freedom to make choices, involving them in decision making and respecting their personal volition during PE classes. Relatedness support should be cultivated, and PE teachers should set challenging goals for cooperative groups and emphasise the importance of team progress so as to unite students as a group. Although ego-involving climate contributed to improving students’ perceived competence, its adoption by PE teachers is prudent because it emphasises the normative comparison among students [59]. Finally, PE teachers are suggested to create a task-involving climate that emphasises effort, progress on self-referenced criterion and learning new things during the PE lessons through a variety of teaching strategies and methods (e.g., TARGET approach [33]). Although PE plays a role on increasing MVPA in schools, it is important to note that the main target of PE is to develop children's movement skills, which might improve movement skill competence and promote engagement in PA during other periods of time and long term [60].
Strengths and limitations
The present study has several strengths. Firstly, it was the first to examine the relationship among the PE climate from the four dimensions, the satisfaction of psychological needs, motivation, and accelerometer-determined MVPA in secondary school students. Secondly, objective measures were adopted to evaluate the MVPA of secondary school students to eliminate the bias of subjective scales. Thirdly, the present study provided new insights into how the manners by which students perceive the PE climate created by PE teachers had different influence on autonomy, competence and relatedness. However, this study has limitations. Firstly, this study is cross-sectional; hence, causal inferences cannot be made. Further longitudinal and intervention studies are needed. Secondly, participants were only from three secondary schools in Shanghai, China. Thus, the results of this study may not be used to generalise situations in other populations. Future research should expand the population beyond Shanghai to other regions or countries. The third limitation was the use of the SDT index to assess students’ motivation. Future studies should focus on analysing the relationship among intrinsic motivation, integrated motivation, identified motivation, introjected motivation, external motivation, amotivation and MVPA in PE. Fourthly, this study did not consider the influence of demographic variables such as gender and age when analysing the relationship between SDT variables and MVPA. Future studies should consider the influence of demographic variables.