Browsing by Subject "Physical education"

Aims. The aim of the present study was to investigate how Chinese high school students’ psychological needs frustration in physical education courses relate to their school achievement, which was reflecting by the change of physical fitness test results. According to the concept of Self-Determination Theory (SDT), humans have three fundamental needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Previous studies have shown that satisfying psychological needs lead to positive outcomes, while thwarting psychological needs cause negative outcomes. This research links Chinese high school students’ psychological needs frustration to their school achievement within PE context, which was conducted to assess the stability of school achievement in physical tests over time for students with different needs frustration groups. Methods. 518 students (274 male, 244 female) from three Senior High Schools in Beijing completed an online questionnaire during school days. Two-Step Cluster analysis in SPSS was used to group students into homogeneous clusters based on their scores for psychological needs thwarting. A mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out to measure the between-group and within-group differences. Results and conclusions. Three distinct psychological needs profiles were identified: high frustration (20.3%), moderate frustration (54.6%), and low frustration (25.1%). For school achievement, it was discovered that students who reported high levels of frustration received the lowest grades in both high school entrance exams and current exams, whereas those who reported low levels of frustration received the highest grades. The mixed ANOVA results showed a significant difference in physical test scores between entrance exams and current exams, indicating a decline in physical performance over time across all three identified profiles. Overall, this study contributes to our understanding of the complex interplay between psychological needs fulfilment and academic performance, which could inform future research and interventions in this field.