The Dilemmas and Coping Strategies of Cultivating Social Skills among College Students in Physical Education: A Qualitative Study Based on Social Learning Theory

College physical education plays a vital role in promoting the all-round development of university students, especially in the formation of social skills such as communication, teamwork, and social adaptation. However, this study found that physical education classes often fail to fully realize their socialization function in actual teaching. To gain a deeper understanding of this phenomenon, this study adopted social learning theory as its theoretical framework and used 12 university students from a comprehensive university in mainland China who had taken physical education courses as research subjects. Through semi-structured interviews, the study explored their real experiences in physical education classes. The results showed that college physical education faces four main dilemmas in cultivating social skills: First, the curriculum structure is singular and biased towards technical training, lacking learning situations that promote cooperation and communication; second, teachers tend to demonstrate techniques more often than social behaviors in the classroom, weakening the effect of observational learning; third, the quality of peer interaction is low, and cooperative relationships are often unstable or superficial due to differences in ability and group structure; fourth, some students reduce participation due to lack of interest, low self-efficacy, or fear of negative evaluation, limiting the natural development of social skills. Based on the above findings, this study proposes optimizations from multiple levels, including curriculum design, teacher demonstration, peer interaction, and learner support, to enhance the social value of physical education classes. The research results not only reveal the structural problems in the cultivation of social skills in current higher education physical education but also provide theoretical references and practical insights for future teaching reforms and policy formulation.