The effect of physical education climates on elementary students' physical activity behaviors.

Current recommendations state that children, ages 5 to 18 years, should engage in a minimum of 60 minutes of daily, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) that incorporates the cardiorespiratory and musculoskeletal systems.1 In Alabama, 70% of school-age children do not meet the daily recommendation for physical activity and only 33.3% have physical education on a daily basis.2 In the United States, 31.7% of children are overweight and 16.8% are obese.3 Furthermore, 34.5% of children living in the rural South are overweight, and 19.5% are obese.4 Children who are overweight are at-risk of poor health and demonstrate a high prevalence of hypokinetic diseases that are commonly seen in adults (ie, heart disease, type II diabetes, stroke, several types of cancer, and osteoarthritis).5 The exact etiology of childhood obesity is not evident, but physical activity is a major contributor to good health and is associated with weight control. With the growing need for children to be physically active, it is imperative to create developmentally appropriate, cost effective and motivating physical education programs that promote physical activity. In response to this concern, researchers have investigated the effect of motivational climates on early childhood movement and physical education programs to understand the motivational process of student engagement.6-10 Motivational climates reflect the salient features of an environment and define how an instructor incorporates and emphasizes various instructional strategies such as the delivery of feedback, rewards, and punishment.11 Mastery-oriented climates are a specific type of motivational climate based on achievement motivation theory.The goal of a mastery-oriented climate is to create a motivating learning environment where effort is encouraged and the learning process is reinforced.12-15 Mastery-oriented climates emphasize key environmental characteristics and instructional cues that are indicative of and lead to the adoption of mastery-oriented achievement goals. These key environmental characteristics and instructional cues, conceptualized by Ames,12,13 are based on Epstein’s14,15 6 dimensional TARGET structures (Table 1). The acronym TARGET stands for Task, Authority, Recognition, Grouping, Evaluation, and Time. A mastery-oriented motivational climate is characterized as autonomy supportive through the implementation of these 6 TARGET structures that allow the learner to navigate their own learning experience and physical engagement by placing the level, duration and type of task engagement in the hands of the student. Individuals invest more effort into a task in mastery oriented climates because they focus on demands and overcoming challenges that are autonomous or self-determined, subsequently increasing intrinsic motivation and perceptions of competence leading to greater effort.16 Table 1 Descriptions of the MMCPEP and LAPEP Conditions in Reference to the TARGET Structure Researchers have found that children enrolled in mastery-oriented climate physical education and sport programs effectively engage in the lessons and self-management,17 express enjoyment,18,19 display positive attitudes toward physical activity,20 and intend to be physically active.19,21 As it relates specifically to children’s physical activity, Parish et al7,8 demonstrated that a mastery-oriented climate results in higher levels of MVPA during physical play sessions for toddlers and preschoolers compared to a performance climate. Furthermore, aspects of motivational climates, such as the need for autonomy have been linked to motivation to engage in leisure time physical activity outside of physical education22 and autonomous motivation for physical education is linked to higher levels of self-reported leisure time physical activity in early adulthood.23 However, studies have not manipulated nor implemented a mastery climate to assess the effect on physical activity accumulated during physical education. A performance-oriented climate is characterized by the teacher having more control over the learning environment as opposed to serving as a facilitator. Emphasis is placed on competition (eg, outperforming others) to achieve success. In this climate, the teacher drives learning and is responsible for making decisions about children’s physical activity engagement. Performance-oriented climates are a traditional teacher-centered approach that is commonly used in physical education settings. Past research has shown that performance-oriented climates can promote motor skill development and learning in children.9,24,25 Previous studies in physical education have focused on motivational regulation such as perceived competence but have not established which motivational climates are effective in promoting sufficient physical activity during physical education.16,18 This information is important because physical education contributes to children meeting physical activity guidelines and accounts for approximately 8.7%-23.7% and 11.4%-17.2% of daily steps for boys and girls respectively.26 With the growing need for children to be more physically active and knowing that physical activity established early in life tracks into adulthood,27 there is a need to optimize the physical education climate to promote physical activity participation to meet the recommendation that 50% of physical education class time be spent in MVPA.28 Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of mastery-oriented and performance-oriented climates on physical education physical activity participation in a sample of rural, children.