Understanding Adolescents’ Need Support, Need Satisfaction, and Health-Related Outcomes: A Self-Determination Health Behavior Perspective

Abstract

School physical education (PE) as an important social context can promote adolescents' physical health and contributes to their mental health. Guided by the self-determination health behavior model, the study aimed to examine a structural mediation model to investigate the relationships among perceived need support from PE teachers, psychological need satisfaction, and adolescents' health-related outcomes. Participants were 300 adolescents (M age = 14.48; 50.3% girls) recruited from five middle schools in Shanghai, China. They completed previously validated questionnaires assessing their perceived need support from PE teachers, psychological need satisfaction, leisure time physical activity (LTPA), and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). The hypothesized model demonstrated a good fit (χ 2 /df = 3.4, p < 0.01; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.09; Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = 0.06; Bentler-Bonett Nonnormed Fit Index (NFI)= 0.92; Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.94; 90% Confidence Interval (CI) [0.07, 0.11]). The findings indicated that three basic psychological needs can be satisfied by perceived need support from PE teachers, and psychological need satisfaction was positively associated with health-related outcomes such as LTPA and HRQOL. In addition, psychological need satisfaction mediated the relationship between perceived need support from PE teachers and health-related outcomes such as LTPA and HRQOL in the present study. The findings supported the theoretical tenets of the self-determination health behavior model and its generalizability among Chinese adolescent students. increased with age during adolescence, and obesity in this population had tripled in the past three decades among Chinese adolescents [5,6].Given that adolescence is a critical period for establishing an independent healthy lifestyle, the prevalence of physical inactivity and related health problems should be addressed [7]. School physical education (PE) as an important social context not only promotes adolescents' physically active lifestyle but can also enhance other health outcomes, such as improving their health-related quality of life (HRQOL) [8][9][10]. To promote and maintain a physically active lifestyle among school-aged adolescents, it is essential to identify the relationships between social environmental factors, psychological factors, and health-related outcomes [11]. According to self-determination theory (SDT), health-related behaviors can be promoted by satisfying individuals' basic psychological needs by creating a need-supportive social environment [12].As a general theory of motivation, SDT has been highlighted as the relevant psychological energy to initiating and maintaining new health-related behaviors [12]. When three basic psychological needs are satisfied in a given domain, the individuals will move toward more autonomous self-regulation around the behaviors and self-determined motivation. SDT has also shown that need-supportive environments (such as the degree of autonomy su...

Accessing Physical Activity and Health Disparities among Underserved Hispanic Children: The Role of Actual and Perceived Motor Competence

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Does Perceived Competence Mediate between Ball Skills and Children’s Physical Activity and Enjoyment?

“…Children were more likely to experience enjoyment once they were competent in different ball skills, which in turn promoted their PA participation. Echoing the suggestions of previous studies [ 5 , 7 , 50 ], PE teachers should aim at improving students’ ball skills with a need-supportive environment that encourages them to feel competent to engage in various types of games and that promotes PA enjoyment.…”

Effect of Social Support on the Psychological Adjustment of Chinese Left-Behind Rural Children: A Moderated Mediation Model

“…As an analogy, Chen et al (2019) found that BPNS mediates the relationship between perceived need support from physical education teachers and adolescents’ health-related outcomes. In addition, Shao et al (2018) demonstrated that the parent–child cohesion has a negative impact on LBC’s depression and loneliness through the partial mediation of BPNS.…”