Background/Purpose: It is well-documented that physical activity promotion for improved health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is a public health priority (USDHHS, 2010). However, college students are not physically active enough to promote their physical and psychosocial functions of HRQOL. Given that student motivation in physical activity energizes and sustains students' exercise behavior, it is imperative to examine the predictive strengths of self-determined motivation on college students' exercise behavior and HRQOL respectively. Guided by the self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2007), the aim of this study was to examine the relationships among college students' self-determined motivation, leisure-time exercise, and HRQOL. In this study, self-determined motivation includes intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, external regulation, and amotivation.
Method: 292 college students (M age = 21.4 ± 3.4; 179 females and 113 males) from a public university responded to standardized scales assessing their perceptions of self-determined motivation, leisure-time exercise behavior, and HRQOL.
Analysis/Results: Correlation analysis demonstrated that self-determined motivational constructs were significantly related to exercise behavior and HRQOL. Leisure-time exercise was positively associated with HRQOL. Regression analyses indicated that intrinsic motivation (β = .18, p < 0.01) was the only predictor of students' exercise behavior (R2 = 3.2 %). Further, intrinsic motivation (β = .21, p < 0.01), introjected regulation (β = -.20, p < 0.01), and external regulation (β = -.15, p < 0.01) were significant predictors of HRQOL (R2 = 11.2 %).
Conclusions: The results indicated that health promoters and practitioners should foster college students' positive motivation to promote their exercise behavior and HRQOL.