How teachers' real-time monitoring behaviors shape students' on-task engagement in technology-enhanced physical education

This study examined whether students' perceptions of teachers' real-time monitoring behaviors in technology-enhanced physical education were associated with students' on-task behavioral engagement, whether this association operated indirectly through self-regulated learning in physical education, and whether it varied according to perceived autonomy support from the physical education teacher. Survey data were collected from 464 secondary school students enrolled in technology-enhanced physical education classes in four Chinese cities (Nanjing, Wuhan, Xi'an, and Kunming). Partial least squares structural equation modeling in SmartPLS was used to test the proposed model. The results indicated that higher perceived teacher real-time monitoring defined here as noticing, checking, and following up on students' ongoing task participation and performance cues during class was positively associated with greater self-regulated learning in physical education and higher on-task behavioral engagement. Self-regulated learning in physical education partially mediated the association between teacher real-time monitoring and on-task behavioral engagement. Perceived autonomy support strengthened the associations between teacher real-time monitoring and both self-regulated learning and on-task behavioral engagement, although these interaction effects were modest in magnitude. Because the design was cross-sectional and based on student self-reports, the findings should be interpreted as associative rather than causal. The study contributes a context-specific operationalization of student-perceived real-time monitoring in Chinese technology-enhanced physical education and suggests that monitoring is most positively linked to engagement when enacted within an autonomy-supportive climate.