The teacher’s role that promotes students' motivation for instruction is vital as a social factor, and the satisfaction of relatedness needs is an essential factor for humans to communicate and interact socially. The purpose of this study was to examine the influences of teachers’ relatedness support on students’ psychological needs and motivation toward learning during physical education (PE) class. A sample of 278 middle school students in North Jeolla Province of Korea participated in the study for measuring the level of relatedness support of PE teachers as well as students’ psychological needs and motivation toward learning. Descriptive statistics, reliability, and the correlation of the variables were examined using the collected data. The path analysis was performed based on the structural model to verify the relationship between the variables. The bootstrap method was applied to verify the significance of the parameters. Results showed that teachers’ relatedness support was positively correlated with students’ psychological needs. Additionally, students’ psychological needs were positively correlated with their motivation toward learning. Moreover, students’ psychological needs play a mediating role in the relationship between teachers’ relatedness support and students’ motivation toward learning. Accordingly, PE teachers should establish learning strategies and environments that support relatedness to promote students’ psychological needs and motivation toward learning.

Learn More >>