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Perceptions of Teachers’ Interpersonal Styles and Well-Being and Ill-Being in Secondary School Physical Education Students: The Role of Need Satisfaction and Need Frustration

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Abstract

This study examined the associations among physical education students’ perceptions of their teachers’ autonomy-supportive and controlling interpersonal styles, need satisfaction and need frustration, and indices of psychological well-being (subjective vitality) and ill-being (negative affect). The results from 591 Chinese secondary school students in Hong Kong indicated that the relationship between students’ perceptions of autonomy-supportive teaching behaviors and subjective vitality was primarily mediated by need satisfaction, whereas the relationship between perceived controlling teaching behaviors and negative affect was primarily mediated by need frustration. The results obtained from the multi-group structural equation model also suggested that these relationships were invariant across sex.

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Notes

  1. “Need thwarting” was first proposed by Bartholomew et al. (2011a, 2011b) as a synonym for the term “need frustration” that has more recently been proposed by Vansteenkiste and Ryan (2013). However, Vansteenkiste and Ryan (2013) and their colleagues Haerens et al. (2015) stated that the term “need thwarting” specifically refers to contextual features that forestall or undermine individual psychological needs, in contrast with “need-supportive” social contexts that promote the satisfaction of psychological needs. Although the term “need thwarting” is used in the Psychological Needs Thwarting Scale in Physical Education, it measures students’ experiences of need frustration in a physical education context. In the present study, in line with the suggestions of Vansteenkiste et al., “need thwarting” is used to refer to features of social contexts and “need frustration” is used to refer to individual experiences regarding psychological needs.

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Funding

This study was funded by Research Grants Council (GRF 12401814), Hong Kong, China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physical Education, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Jingdong Liu & Pak-Kwong Chung

  2. School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

    Kimberley Bartholomew

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  1. Jingdong Liu
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Correspondence to Jingdong Liu.

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Liu, J., Bartholomew, K. & Chung, PK. Perceptions of Teachers’ Interpersonal Styles and Well-Being and Ill-Being in Secondary School Physical Education Students: The Role of Need Satisfaction and Need Frustration. School Mental Health 9, 360–371 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-017-9223-6

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