Need Thwarting Predicts Students' Autonomous Motivation and Controlled Motivation in Secondary Physical Education

Background: Need thwarting refers to the phenomenon in which individuals felt their psychological needs being actively undermined, rejected or isolated as a result of social contextual influences. It may promote undesirable... [ view full abstract ]

Background: Need thwarting refers to the phenomenon in which individuals felt their psychological needs being actively undermined, rejected or isolated as a result of social contextual influences. It may promote undesirable forms of motivation, which may negative impact students’ behaviors.

Objective: This study aims to explore how the thwarting of three psychological needs (competence, autonomy and relatedness) affect students' autonomous and controlled motivation in PE.  

Methods: Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted to examine validity properties of the Chinese PNT questionnaires. Data from a total of 331 Hong Kong secondary school students (52.6% male; mean age=14.02±1.11) was subject to EFA. A second set of data included a total of 401 students (57.6% male; mean age=14.59±1.01) for CFA. Afterwards, 144 Hong Kong secondary school students (52% males; mean age = 14.06±1.08) were recruited to complete the questionnaires for tapping their need thwarting experiences, autonomous motivation and controlled motivation in secondary PE classes. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the associations between need thwarting and students’ autonomous and controlled motivation.

Results: EFA identified three factors for the need thwarting scale. In CFA, the hypothesized three-factor model was examined for the 12-item of need thwarting scale. Thwarting of autonomy was significantly and negatively associated with autonomous motivation (β=-0.18, p=.01) with 7.7% of variance explained the autonomous motivation. Thwarting of autonomy and relatedness were significantly and positively associated with controlled motivation (β=0.22 and β=0.14 respectively, p<.01) with 20% of variance explained the controlled motivation. 

 Conclusion: We found support for the validity of scale scores derived from the 12-item PNT scale. Thwarting on autonomy and relatedness had significant negative impacts on students’ motivation in secondary PE. These findings would shed new lights on future planning on pedagogical and instructional strategies in secondary PE teaching.