Motivational profiles and their relationship with responsibility, school social climate and resilience in high school students

Enduring education and employment: Examining motivation and mechanisms of psychological resilience

Resilience, the ability to bounce back from difficult events, is critical for an individual to negotiate stressors and adversity. Despite being widely studied, little is known about the processes involved in the development of resilience. The goal of the studies are to investigate the relationship between motivation orientation, emotional intelligence, cognitive appraisals, and psychological resilience. Two studies, using self-report questionnaires were conducted with employed young adults also enrolled in post-secondary studies (pre- and during the pandemic) to test the tenability of our proposed models. Study 1 and Study 2 showed that emotional intelligence and challenge appraisals were mediators of autonomous motivation and resilience. Study 2 revealed statistically significant differences in mean scores of autonomous motivation and emotional intelligence between non-pandemic students and pandemic students. Based on the findings, it is suggested that autonomous motivation, emotional intelligence, and challenge appraisals are important aptitudes for the development of resilience. Furthermore, findings suggest that social isolation caused by the pandemic may have affected levels of emotional intelligence. Ultimately, the research expands the literature on both self-determination theory and resilience by offering a unique multiple mediation model for predicting the development of resilience within the employed undergraduate population.

Profile analysis through self-determination theory and intention to be physically active: differences according to gender and age

Introduction

Physical Education in the current education system has various objectives,including educating students on the values of physical activity and increasing the physical activity levels of students.

Objective

The purpose of the present study is to analyze the motivational profiles of students, to understand which profiles have higher levels of responsibility, satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and social relationship needs; intention to be physically active; and perception of autonomy support.

Methods

A total of 752 students from Primary, Secondary, and Non-compulsory Education (M = 13.809; SD = 1.984, 47.9% boys and 52.1% girls), from different educational centers in Spain, participated in the study, to whom a series of questionnaires were administered to find out their values of the mentioned variables. The results established the existence of four profiles: "high quality," "low quality," "high quantity," and "low quantity" of motivation.

Results

The results reflect that the students of the "high quality" and "high quantity" profiles had higher values in all the variables in relation to the other two groups (except in amotivation and external regulation), discussing the differential analysis between the four groups. The group with the best results was the "high quantity" profile, as opposed to the "low quantity" profile. In turn, no differences were found according to gender, but according to the educational stage, the Primary Education stage was more related to the more self-determined profiles.

Discussion and conclusion

Therefore, it is necessary to look for more self-determined motivational profiles from an early age in order to improve levels of responsibility, perception of autonomy, satisfaction of basic psychological needs, and the intention to be physically active.

Personal and Social Responsibility Model: Differences According to Educational Stage in Motivation, Basic Psychological Needs, Satisfaction, and Responsibility

The purpose of this study was to apply the Personal and Social Responsibility Model (TPSR) and verify its effects on responsibility and motivation according to educational stage. For this, teachers from Physical Education and other subjects were trained and a pre-test and a post-test were carried out. The intervention was carried out over five months. The total sample comprised 408 students after the inclusion criteria were applied to the initial sample of 430, including being 192 students from 5th and 6th grade of Elementary (M 10.16; SD = 0.77) and 222 from Secondary (M = 12.86; SD = 0.70), with a confidence level of 95% and 5% error margin. The total number of students in the experimental group was 216, with 192 in the control group. The results reflected improvements in the experimental group in terms of experience motivation, identified regulation, amotivation, autonomy, competence, social responsibility, SDI, and BPNs (p < 0.05 and d Cohen > 0.2). The control group did not present differences in any variable. Considering the differences according to stage, the Elementary school group obtained values of p < 0.05 and d > 0.02 in experience motivation, amotivation, autonomy, competence, personal and social responsibility, SDI, and BPNs, which was not found in the Secondary school group. It is concluded that the TPSR may be applicable in both Elementary and Secondary schools to improve the motivation and responsibility of students, with the most favorable results for Elementary education students.

Motivational Profiles in Physical Education: Differences at the Psychosocial, Gender, Age and Extracurricular Sports Practice Levels

The objective of this study was to analyze the motivational profiles of Physical Education (PE) students and assess differences based on the perception of the support of autonomy, the intention to be physically active, satisfaction with classes, gender, age, and extracurricular sports activities. A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out with a sample of 2621 students, aged 8 to 18 years (M = 14.16, SD = 2.28). An analysis of profiles was implemented, taking into account the motivation and the index of psychological mediators. The result of the cluster analysis gave a solution to four motivational profiles: high quality (n = 1094), low quantity (n = 292), low quality (n = 555), and high quantity (n = 680). Students grouped in the high quantity and quality profile presented higher levels of autonomy support, physical activity intention, enjoyment, and lower levels of boredom. Male participants, younger students, and those who participated in extracurricular activity were associated with self-determined profiles. In conclusion, the importance of promoting the satisfaction of basic psychological needs and autonomous motivation in PE classes is highlighted, in order to achieve higher values in terms of autonomy support, the intention to be physically active, enjoyment, and to reduce boredom levels in students.

Physical Education Classes and Responsibility: The Importance of Being Responsible in Motivational and Psychosocial Variables

The objective of this research work was to analyse the different profiles that can be identified, based on levels of responsibility in relation to Self-Determination Theory, school climate and violence in Physical Education classes. For this, a total of 470 students of Compulsory Secondary Education or Baccalaureate were given a questionnaire where aspects related to motivation, basic psychological needs, responsibility, school social climate and violence were analysed. An analysis of these profiles was conducted, taking into account the variables of "personal responsibility" and "social responsibility", with the results leading to the conclusion that three profiles exist: "low responsibility" (n = 89), "moderate responsibility" (n = 187) and "high responsibility" (n = 194). The results reflected statistically significant differences in all the variables between the three profiles. The high responsibility cluster obtained significantly higher values for the different constructs of motivation (except in external regulation, where there were no differences, compared to the "moderate responsibility" group), basic psychological needs and school social climate. On the other hand, it obtained lower values in amotivation and violence, with no differences based on the sex or age of the participants in the distribution of the clusters. It is concluded that the more responsible profile can have positive results in psychological variables in Physical Education classes and in the general educational field. For this reason, the use of active methodologies, which have been extensively studied to promote responsibility in PE classes, could be an appropriate strategy to achieve a more adaptive psychological profile regardless of the gender or age of the students.