The Relationship Between School-Leisure Conflict and Educational and Mental Health Indexes: A Motivational Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to tcst a motivational model that explains the relationship between school-leisure conflict and indicators of educational fiinctioning and mental health using structural equation modeling with a sample of college studcnts. Results provided support for the proposed model. Experiencing a conflict between education and leisure contexts was negatively predicted by having a self-determined motivation for school, while self-determined motivation for leisure activities was unrelated lo the experience of such a conflict. A school-leisure contlict, in turn, was associated with poorer academic consequences (poor concentration at school, academic hopelessness, few intentions of pursuing in school), which were associated with higher levels of depression and low life satisfaction. Importantly, the proposed theoretical model was supported for both inen and women. Results are discussed in terms of self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985 and the hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Vallcrand, 1'997).Julianne is a senior high school student. She is involved with several extracurricular activities at school. For example, she is in charge of the graduation ball, she hosts a show at the school radio. and she plays on the school volleyball team. Ail of these activities impinge on her studying time to the point that Julianne often finds herself neglecting her homework in order to meet with friends or play volleyball. It seems that whenever she starts studying, there is 'Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Cathcrine F. Ratelle, Facultd des sciences de I'education, local 946, Universite Laval. Quebec GI K 7P4. Canada.

Conflict between Women's Physically Active and Passive Leisure Pursuits: The Role of Self‐Determination and Influences on Well‐Being

“…Their results were consistent with Senecal, Vallerand and Guay's initial 2001 results, showing the more self-determined an individual feels toward activities from two important life domains, work and family, the less inter-domain conflict results. While Ratelle et al (2005) did not find any significant influence of motivation toward leisure on conflict between school and leisure, they concluded that this may be explained by the fact that school is a largely less self-determined context compared to leisure. Individuals in their college age sample feel obligated to engage in school and therefore the nature of the conflict stems from an obligation to engage in something that is not as self-determined.…”

“…Using Vallerand's (2007) HMIEM that builds on SDT (Deci and Ryan, 1985Ryan, , 2002 and expanding on the work started by Senecal et al (2001) and Ratelle et al (2005), this study aims to study the influences of time constraints and self-determination on conflict between physically active and passive leisure pursuits in physically active working mothers. Subsequent analyses will examine the influence of conflict between physically active and passive leisure on subjective well-being over and above the variation in well-being explained by time engaged in both these leisure activities.…”

“…The theory has been used to examine motivational influences on various behaviours including physical activity (Fortier, Williams, Sweet, & Patrick, 2009;Teixeira, Carraca, Markland, Silva, & Ryan, 2012), work (Gillet, Gagne, Sauvagere, & Fouquereau, 2012;Moran, Diefendorff, Kim, & Liu, 2012) and school (Wehmeyer, Palmer, Shogren, Williams-Diehm, & Soukup, 2013) and general leisure pursuits (Leversen, Danielson, Wold, & Samdal, 2012;Ratelle, Vallerand, Senecal & Provencher, 2005). There is a small but growing body of literature showing that self-determined motivation toward conflicting goal pursuits reduces reported conflict due to the harmonious integration of the goals into the self concept (Ratelle et al, 2005;Senecal, Vallerand, & Guay, 2001). While SDT is comprised of component sub-theories, the Organismic Integration Theory (OIT) is of particular interest to this study.…”

“…Of particular interest in this study is conflict at the contextual level examining the influence of self-determined and non-self-determined motivation for the two contexts of physically active and passive leisure on conflict between them. Ratelle et al (2005) in their examination of conflict between the contexts of school and leisure revealed that contextual self-determined motivation for school negatively predicted school/leisure conflict and high levels of conflict were associated with poorer academic outcomes, higher levels of depression and low life satisfaction. Their results were consistent with Senecal, Vallerand and Guay's initial 2001 results, showing the more self-determined an individual feels toward activities from two important life domains, work and family, the less inter-domain conflict results.…”

“…With respect to purpose two, self-determined motivation toward physically active and passive leisure is expected to be associated with decreased conflict as predicted by SDT and reported by Ratelle, Vallerand, Senecal and Provencher (2005) in their school-leisure conflict work.…”