Academic motivation and basic psychological needs among university students in physical education and mountain sports: a self-determination theory study

Academic motivation in physically demanding university programmes may be better understood by considering motivational quality rather than motivation quantity alone. This cross-sectional observational survey supplemented by structured content analysis examined relationships among basic psychological need satisfaction and frustration, autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, amotivation, continuation intention, and career commitment in first- and second-year students enrolled in Physical Education and Mountain Sports at Transilvania University of Brașov. Data were collected from 6 to 30 October 2025 after ethics approval, yielding a final analytical sample of 237 students. Participants completed the Academic Motivation Scale-College/University version, the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale, contextual and sport-related items, continuation and career indicators, and two open-ended prompts. Original open-ended answers were standardized into 50 motivation and 50 demotivation formulations and independently coded by both authors. Autonomous motivation averaged 5.04 (SD = 1.05), amotivation 2.40 (SD = 0.95), overall need satisfaction 3.72 (SD = 0.73), and overall need frustration 2.21 (SD = 0.76). Need satisfaction correlated strongly with autonomous motivation (Spearman ρ = 0.704), whereas need frustration correlated strongly with amotivation (ρ = 0.661). In adjusted models, need satisfaction was positively associated with autonomous motivation (β = 0.539, p < 0.001), and need frustration was positively associated with amotivation (β = 0.569, p < 0.001). Human coding agreement was high for motivation (92.0%, κ = 0.898) and demotivation (94.0%, κ = 0.927). Teaching/prosocial impact was the most frequent motivation category (33.8%), while curriculum/teaching/assessment was the most frequent demotivation category (23.6%). Overall, self-reported need satisfaction and frustration were differentially associated with motivational quality in this cohort, but the cross-sectional, single-faculty design precludes causal or population-level conclusions.