Do Observed Teaching Behaviors Relate to Students’ Engagement in Physical Education?

Alba González-Peño, Evelia Franco and Javier Coterón
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Alba González-Peño: Social Sciences Applied to Physical Activity, Sport and Leissure Department, Faculty of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences—INEF, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Evelia Franco: Departament of Education, Research and Evaluation Methods, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 28049 Madrid, Spain
Javier Coterón: Social Sciences Applied to Physical Activity, Sport and Leissure Department, Faculty of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences—INEF, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 5, 1-13

Abstract: Teachers’ behaviors can affect students’ engagement in the Physical Education (PE) setting. According to self-determination theory, teachers can rely on either a need-supportive or a controlling teaching behavior, and these behaviors will differently affect students’ outcomes. The main objective of this research was to analyse how teaching behaviors and some contextual variables influence students’ engagement in PE classes. The present study adds to the existing literature through an observation-based design in which real-life examples of need-supportive and thwarting teaching behaviors, as well as students’ engagement behaviors, have been identified. Thirty-seven different PE lessons were coded for 5-min intervals to assess the occurrence of 36 teaching behaviors and five students’ behaviors. Stepwise regression revealed that both structure during activity and relatedness support could predict student engagement in a positive way. Surprisingly, cold teaching also emerged as a direct predictor in the last step of the analysis. On the other hand, controlling and structure before activity behaviors inversely predicted students’ engagement. These four variables explained 39% of the variance in student engagement, whereas autonomy support did not correlate with student engagement. These new findings in the field not only confirm the known relevance of teaching behavior for students’ outcomes but also suggest an unexpected lack of influence of autonomy support on students’ engagement as well as an association between cold teaching and students’ engagement. Results are discussed in the light of new approaches, and some practical implications are provided.

Keywords: behavioral engagement; teaching behavior; self-determination theory; physical education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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