The impact of empowering motivational climate in physical education on secondary school students’ life skills: a self-system model of motivational development

Adolescents play a crucial role in societal advancement, and fostering their development is a global priority. The Positive Youth Development (PYD) framework emphasizes strength-based approaches, highlighting life skills such as teamwork, goal setting, and problem-solving. Physical education (PE) serves as an effective platform for cultivating these skills. While extensive research has explored sports’ role in life skills development across various regions, studies in Chinese-speaking contexts remain limited. Cultural and linguistic factors may influence psychological mechanisms underlying life skills acquisition, necessitating further investigation. The Self-System Model of Motivational Development (SSMMD) provides a theoretical basis for understanding how environmental influences, self-perception, and engagement contribute to learning and development. Although widely applied in academic settings, its application in PE remains underexplored. This study examines how an empowering motivational climate in PE fosters life skills development among secondary school students through the SSMMD framework. It explores the mediating roles of deliberate rumination and PE engagement. By adapting SSMMD to PE, this research introduces the Youth Physical Education Engagement Development Model, emphasizing the critical role of PE teachers in shaping motivational climates. While prior research has explored this area, this study enhances the understanding of life skills acquisition through PE in Chinese-speaking contexts. This study was conducted in six middle and high schools across five regions of China, with 549 valid responses (263 males, 286 females; aged 12–18, M = 15.17, SD = 1.55) obtained through random class selection. Data were collected via paper-based questionnaires assessing empowering motivational climate, life skills, deliberate rumination, and physical education engagement. Data analysis involved SPSS 25.0 for preliminary statistics and Mplus 8.3 for confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Correlation analysis indicated that all four variables—empowering motivational climate, deliberate rumination, physical education engagement, and life skills development—were significantly and positively correlated with each other (p < .01). Structural equation modeling indicated a good model fit (χ2/df = 3.149, CFI = 0.952, TLI = 0.943, RMSEA = 0.063, SRMR = 0.041). Path analysis confirmed that an empowering motivational climate positively predicted life skills (β = 0.329, p < .001) and influenced them indirectly via deliberate rumination (β = 0.183, 95% CI = [0.136, 0.241]) and physical education engagement (β = 0.050, 95% CI = [0.016, 0.093]). A chain mediation effect (β = 0.094, 95% CI = [0.063, 0.135]) was also observed. An empowering motivational climate in physical education fosters life skills development both directly and through the mediating effects of deliberate rumination and physical education engagement. These findings highlight the importance of supportive physical education environments in promoting adolescent personal growth. The study provides theoretical and practical implications for enhancing life skills through structured motivational climates. Future research should consider longitudinal and mixed-method approaches to further explore these developmental mechanisms.