Which School Community Agents Influence Adolescents’ Motivational Outcomes and Physical Activity? Are More Autonomy-Supportive Relationships Necessarily Better?

Javier Sevil, Luis García-González, Ángel Abós, Eduardo Generelo Lanaspa and Alberto Aibar Solana
Additional contact information
Javier Sevil: Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, Department of Didactics of the Musical, Plastic and Corporal Expression, University of Zaragoza, 22001 Huesca, Spain
Luis García-González: Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, Department of Didactics of the Musical, Plastic and Corporal Expression, University of Zaragoza, 22001 Huesca, Spain
Ángel Abós: Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, Department of Didactics of the Musical, Plastic and Corporal Expression, University of Zaragoza, 22001 Huesca, Spain
Eduardo Generelo Lanaspa: Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, Department of Didactics of the Musical, Plastic and Corporal Expression, University of Zaragoza, 22001 Huesca, Spain
Alberto Aibar Solana: Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Department of Didactics of the Musical, Plastic and Corporal Expression, University of Zaragoza, 22003 Huesca, Spain

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-21

Abstract: The first aim of this work was to examine the independent influence of students’ perceived autonomy support for leisure-time physical activity (LTPA), from different school community agents, on motivational outcomes in a LTPA context and objective PA levels. Using both a variable- and person-centered approach, the second aim was to examine how different combinations of autonomy-support were associated with students’ motivational outcomes in a LTPA context and PA levels. A sample of 178 secondary students ( M = 13.26 ± 0.64) participated in the study. Autonomy support for LTPA from the PE teacher, mother, father, and peers were the only agents that significantly and positively predicted motivational outcomes in a LTPA context and PA levels. While the two- and three-way interactions of some of these four significant sources significantly increased the explained variance of some motivational outcomes, the plots revealed that the lowest values of motivational outcomes were associated with low values of perceived autonomy support. A cluster analysis revealed five profiles. The “high autonomy support” group reported the most optimal outcomes, whereas the “low autonomy support” group showed the opposite pattern. However, mixed autonomy support profiles did not differ in any of the outcomes. The adoption of a whole-of-school approach seems decisive to empower adolescents to be active in and out of school.

Keywords: physical activity; health promotion; school; autonomy support; autonomous motivation; basic psychological needs; intention to be physically active; adolescence; self-determination theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/9/1875/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/9/1875/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:9:p:1875-:d:166590

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().