Application of Teaching Strategies for Improving Students' Situational Motivation in Physical Education

Introduction: Physical Education (PE) is a way of promoting sports in adolescents, and teachers can encourage this sport adherence by generating motivation in students through their teaching intervention. The aim of the study was to develop and implement teaching intervention strategies to generate an optimal motivational climate and assess their impact on different variables that affect students' situational motivation in Physical Education classes. The Achievement Goal Theory and the Self-determination Theory were taken as a reference. Method: The intervention was based on the TARGET areas, developing an orientational teaching unit with the participation of 113 3rd year ESO (secondary education) students (58 boys and 53 girls; M age = 14.83 and SD = 0.72), who were divided into an experimental group (n = 46) and a control group (n = 67). Different instruments were used to measure perceived motivational climate, basic psychological needs, self-determined situational motivation and affective consequences (satisfaction-enjoyment and boredom). Results: The results showed that the experimental group obtained significantly higher values with respect to the control group in the mastery motivational climate, as well as in autonomy, perceived competence, identified regulation and satisfaction-enjoyment. The amotivation values were significantly lower in the experimental group. Discussion: The results highlight the importance of PE teacher transmitting task motivational climates to optimise different variables that affect motivation in PE classes, thus improving the teaching-learning process. Conclusion: We highlight that the TARGET areas are effective to optimise the teaching intervention in the orientational content and to help improve the students' motivation in PE.