Antecedents of physical education teachers’ motivational strategies in Central Europe

Promoting autonomy-supportive teachers’ behaviour is important for teaching students to take responsibility for their performance and for increasing their level of enjoyment in physical education (PE). Based on self-determination theory, our research aimed to identify the antecedents of PE teachers’ motivational strategies that can facilitate students’ psychological needs satisfaction and positive outcomes during PE classes. A total of 376 primary and secondary school PE teachers completed our cross-sectional-design questionnaires in four Central European countries (Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Serbia). Measures included perceived job pressures, opportunities for professional development, perceptions of students’ self-determination in PE, teachers’ psychological need satisfaction in their job, teachers’ self-determination at work, and teachers’ provision of autonomy support, structure, and involvement strategies. Jamovi software for structural equation modelling and the path analysis method was used for statistical analysis. Following post hoc modification, the hypothesized model showed a good fit to our model (χ 2 (17) = 64.60, p = 0.00; CMIN/ df = 3.80; CFI = 0.92; TLI = 0.81; SRMR = 0.05; RMSEA = 0.08). Results indicated that teachers’ opportunities for professional development had a significant positive relationship with their need satisfaction at work, which was positively linked with their motivation to teach. Job pressure was negatively associated with basic psychological need satisfaction. Teachers’ perception of students’ autonomous motivation was positively linked with their own autonomous and controlled motivation, and was also directly and positively linked to their use of involvement and autonomy-supportive teaching strategies.