Perceived coach autonomy support and burnout in Chinese university athletes: Basic need satisfaction as an indirect link across gender and sport type

Perceived coach autonomy support is consistently associated with adaptive athlete functioning, but the specific link to burnout and its subgroup consistency remain less clear. Guided by self-determination theory (SDT), this study tested whether basic psychological need satisfaction formed a theoretically ordered indirect association between perceived coach autonomy support and athlete burnout, and whether that indirect association differed by gender or sport type. We analysed three-phase self-report data from 430 Chinese university athletes (230 men, 200 women; 291 individual-sport, 139 team-sport) from three institutions. The study had institutional review board approval (Ref. No. IRB/D-2667; 27 August 2024), and all participants provided informed consent. Analyses included a parcel-level three-factor confirmatory factor analysis, reliability and discriminant-validity checks, bias-corrected bootstrap estimation of the indirect association (5000 resamples), indices of moderated mediation, and interaction-sensitivity calculations. The parcel model showed close fit, χ 2 (24) = 25.80, CFI = 0.999, RMSEA = 0.013. The standardized indirect association was −0.295, 95% CI [−0.373, −0.221]. No statistically detectable moderation emerged for gender (index of moderated mediation = −0.109, 95% CI [−0.261, 0.037]) or sport type (0.046, 95% CI [−0.120, 0.211]). The findings are consistent with basic psychological need satisfaction as a proximal statistical link between perceived coach autonomy support and burnout in this sample. They do not establish causal mediation, subgroup equivalence, or intervention effects.