Physical education teachers as specific agents of value socialisation: Evidence for the underlying mechanism

A core aim of educational systems is the nurturing of certain values in students, but underlying mechanisms remain unclear, leaving teachers without guidelines. Our framework considers teachers as attachment and authority figures who influence students' personal values, and physical education (PE) as a context that can foster this social influence. We experimentally tested if PE teacher communication of personal values influences students’ personal values, attitudes and post-experiment self-reported behaviour, and if this social influence is reinforced by the intensity of physical engagement in PE tasks. The results of our 2 (teacher value: healthy eating vs. control) x 2 (intensity of physical engagement: low vs. high) design ( n = 207) confirmed our hypotheses. According to our framework, exploratory analyses moreover revealed that intense physical engagement strengthened student perceptions of teacher support, which enhanced student adherence to teacher values. These findings highlight how PE teachers can instil socially useful values in future citizens.