Research On The Relationship Between The Social Psychological Environment Of Physical Education Classroom And Students' Classroom Physical Activity Level

Objective:The decline in physical activity among teenagers has become an indisputable fact.The school is responsible for the promotion of physical activities for students in schools.Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity(hereinafter referred to as MVPA)is regarded as an effective index for promoting the physical fitness of students.The good class environment is beneficial for students to engage on physical activity,but few studies has explored the association between the psychological environment in PE class and MVPA in students.The aims of this study were to investigate the association between the different factors of psychological environment in PE class and MVPA,and define the key indicators that affect MVPA level of middle school students in PE class which is in order to optimize the PE class environment,encourage students to engage on physical activity.and improve their sports efficiency.Method:A horizontal study was design ed to recruit 867 middle school students(male=467,mean age=13.5)and 42 teachers(male=31)in the four urban districts of Nanjing.The physical activity of the students was measured using the GT3x accelerometer.Psychological environment in PE class was measured with psychological Environment Scale in PE class(hereinafter referred to as PES)which is based on class psychological environment scale and class atmosphere scale.Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory were used to classify teachers' teaching styles(legislative,executive,judicial,global,liberal and conservative).SPSS 24.0 was used to analyze the data.The exploratory factor analysis(EFA),internal consistency test,and test-retest reliability test were used to analyze the reliability and validity of PES;moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity percentages(MVPA%)was taken as the dependent variable and psychological environment in PE class as the independent variable,using linear regression analysis to analyze the relation between them.The one-way analysis of variance(ANCOVA)and multivariate analysis of covariance(MANCOVA)were used to analyze the potential effects of teaching style on MVPA%and psychological environment in PE class.Results:(1)Exploratory factor analysis was used to analyze the 68 items of the class psychological environment scale and class atmosphere scale.The results showed that KMO=0.975,and Bartlett spherical test was p<0.01.Maximal orthogonal rotation of common factors extracted by principal component analysis.The factors with a retention factor of more than 0.5 and a degree of commonality greater than 0.3 resulted in four dimensions of the psychological environment scale in PE class which consist of 55 items in total:classroom atmosphere(22 items),teacher-student relationship(14 items),student relations(6 items)and student self-effort and satisfaction(13 items).The internal consistency reliability of the revised PES was Cronbach ?=0.985.the correlation between the dimensions was 0.520 to 0.855.and the correlation between each dimension and the scale was 0.661 to 0.943.Besides,the dimensions were different after 4 weeks.The test-retest reliability of the scale was 0.696-0.936.(2)The linear regression analysis was used to explore the relation between psychological environment in PE class and MVPA%.The results showed that the four dimensions of PES are closely related to the MVPA%.The four dimensions can explain the 5.1%variation in MVPA%(R2=0.051,p=0.016).Compared to classroom atmosphere and teacher-student relationship,student relations(p=0.006)and student self-effort and satisfaction(p=0.042)are highly relevant with MVPA%(3)Considering the low interpretation variance of MVPA%in the psychological environment in PE class,we further explore the potential impact of teachers' teaching style on the construction of psychological environment in PE class and MVPA%.Using teacher professional titles,educational background,and teaching age as covariates,ANCOVA was used to explored the effect of teachers' teaching style on MVPA%.The results showed that the MVPA%of middle school students taught by teachers with a single teaching style was significantly higher than that of teachers with diverse teaching styles(F(1,1054)=7.35,p=0.007).The use of MANCOVA to explore the influence of teachers' teaching styles on the psychological environment in PE class revealed that there is a significant difference between the teachers of a single and diverse teaching style in psychological environment in PE class(F(4,1031)=3.20,p=0.013).Teachers with single teaching style got more scores in the classroom atmosphere(difference=4.85,p=0.001),teacher-student relationship(difference=2.13,p=0.023),student relations(difference=0.82,p=0.039)and student self-effort and satisfaction(difference=1.83,p=0.028)than diverse teaching styles.Conclusion:(1)The revised PES has good reliability and validity,and can be used as an effective measurement tool to assess the psychological environment in PE class.(2)There are significant associations between the psychological environment in PE class and physical activity of students.A good psychological environment in PE class can effectively promote the physical activity among students.(3)Different types of teaching style may affect the level of students' physical activity in class,as well as the construction of the psychological environment of PE class.However,a further study is needed to explore the potential influences of teaching styles on the relationships between student MVPA and psychological environment in PE class.