Psychological Effectiveness of Online Physical Education Lectures among Vietnamese University Students

Background: Vietnamese universities expanded online delivery of Physical Education (PE) during and after COVID-19, yet evidence on psychological outcomes for non-PE majors remains limited. Objective: To examine pre–post changes in psychological indicators associated with participation in a structured online PE lecture system across four sport modules (chess, volleyball, tennis, football). Methods: A quasi-experimental pre–post design was implemented with 400 non-PE major students enrolled in online PE via an institutional LMS integrating multimedia lessons, interactive tasks, and feedback activities. Psychological outcomes were assessed using SF-36 subscales (vitality/energy–fatigue, mental health, role limitations due to emotional problems, Social Functioning) alongside a brief learning-experience questionnaire. Analyses included descriptive statistics, paired t-tests, and one-way ANOVA; complete paired data were available for n = 160. Results: Significant improvements were observed across all SF-36 indicators: vitality increased from 48.53±17.40 to 63.28±16.97 (+14.75; p<0.001), mental health from 54.10±15.22 to 66.23±14.31 (+12.13; p<0.001), Role-Emotional from 51.62±19.87 to 69.54±20.41 (+17.92; p<0.001), and Social Functioning from 62.41±16.88 to 70.99±17.22 (+8.58; p<0.001). Between-module differences were small but favored football and tennis for vitality (F=4.53; p=0.004). Conclusion: Participation in well-designed online PE lectures was associated with significant improvements in psychological indicators. However, causal effects cannot be inferred due to the absence of a control group. Online PE could nevertheless serve as a complementary component of blended PE curricula in higher education rather than being viewed solely as an emergency solution.