Based on Self-Determination Theory, relatedness support refers to the social environment in which individuals have the opportunity to develop inspiring relationships with others and they feel that key social figures really care about them. Researchers have found that a close, stable, secure, and nurturing relationship with significant authority figures, such as teachers, is a critical factor for adolescents' development. Nevertheless, comparing with research on students' underlying beliefs and capacities, importance of interpersonal affiliation or relatedness in motivation has not been well recognized (Legault et al., 2006). This study was designed to investigate the influence of perceived teachers' relatedness support on urban high-school girls' engagement in physical education.
Method
Participants were 185 high-school girls (age range=15-18 years, mean age=16.1 years) enrolling in three urban high schools in a large Midwestern metropolitan area. Perceived teachers' relatedness support was measured using a four-item self-report relatedness scale (Furrer & Skinner, 2003). Motivation in physical education was assessed with a 12-item perceived locus of causality questionnaire adapted from Ryan and Connell (1989), which measures intrinsic motivation, as well as identified, introjected, and external regulations. Engagement was measured with both 10-item teacher-reports and 10-item student-reports (Skinner et al., 2008). In teacher-reports, students' teachers completed measures of student behavioral and emotional engagement in physical education. In student-reports, students reported on their own behavioral and emotional engagement. Cronbach's alpha was .74 or above for all scales.
Analysis/Results
Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted for the purpose of this study. The independent variables were, in order of entry, age, motivation, and perceived teachers' relatedness support. By entering age, we considered for it as a possible confounding factor. The analyses showed that perceived teachers' relatedness support influenced students' engagement directly and significantly, even after controlling motivation variables. For student behavioral engagement, teachers' relatedness support was associated with the teacher-reports (DR2=.07, â=.29, P<.01) and the student-reports (DR2=.07, â=.29, P<.01). For student emotional engagement, teachers' relatedness support was associated with the teacher-reports (DR2=.10, â=.30, P<.01) and the student-reports (DR2=.04, â=.19, P<.01).
Conclusions
These results suggest that perceived teachers' relatedness support has broad and unique influences on urban high-school girls' behavioral and emotional engagement in physical education. Given the fact that there is a sharper decline of female adolescents' overall physical activity level during high school years, it is important for teachers to create a learning climate with warmth, caring, sensitivity, dedication of attention and time, and emotional availability in physical education.
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