18. Research in Sports Pedagogy
Paper
Relationships Between Causality Orientations and Adoption of Need-Supportive and Need-Thwarting Styles among Physical Education Teachers
Eishin Teraoka, Yoshinori Okade
Nippon Sport Science University, Japan
Presenting Author: Teraoka, Eishin
The affective domain has received increasing attention in education and educational research due to the reported growing prevalence of mental health issues among young people. In the physical education context, the self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan and Deci, 2017) outlined optimal teaching styles to promote students’ motivation and psychological well-being and facilitated views representative of mental health. This study aimed to explore characteristics of physical education teachers associated with optimal teaching styles for affective learning.
The SDT argues that people have three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Support of these needs is required to foster positive learning processes, such as motivation and psychological well-being. Previous studies have demonstrated that need-supportive styles, including autonomy-support and structure, in physical education satisfy the three psychological needs, leading to affective learning outcomes, whereas need-thwarting styles, including control and chaos, produce less desirable outcomes (Behzadnia et al., 2018; Haerens et al., 2015).
Recent research has shifted to focus on antecedents to investigate why teachers adopt need-supportive and need-thwarting styles. Antecedents of teaching styles have been examined in relation to teachers’ perceived pressures from above, below, and within. A recent study revealed that teachers are likely to adopt need-supportive styles when perceived pressures from below and within are reduced, whereas need-thwarting styles could be predicted by the prevalence of pressures from above and within (Escriva-Boulley, Haerens, et al., 2021). Therefore, the adoption of teaching styles could be closely associated with the degree of perceived pressures from within, such as teachers’ own beliefs, values, and personal dispositions (Reeve, 2009).
The Causality Orientation Theory, which is a sub-theory of the SDT, identifies antecedents that influence teaching styles, including three causality dimensions: autonomy, control, and impersonal orientations (Ryan and Deci, 2017). Autonomy orientation refers to individuals focusing on events and perceiving the environment as a source of information, considering their own needs, interests, and values. Control orientation reflects the tendency to be controlled by external events, such as rewards, deadlines, and punishments. Impersonal orientation indicates the tendency to interpret actions as beyond one’s intentional control and not understand the reasons behind one’s actions. As such, we hypothesised that teachers with an autonomy orientation would employ need-supportive styles and rely less on need-thwarting styles, whereas teachers with control and impersonal orientations would adopt need-thwarting styles and utilise need-supportive styles less.
Studies examining the influence of causality orientation on need-supportive and need-thwarting styles are scarce, and the few extant studies have not attempted to examine this relationship among secondary schools’ physical education teachers. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the role of causality orientations in adopting need-supportive and need-thwarting styles in physical education.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedWe conducted a web-based questionnaire survey between August and September 2022. The participants were recruited through a request letter, which contained a link to the survey, posted to 1,200 randomly chosen secondary schools across Japan. The survey site provided information regarding the purpose of the study, voluntary participation, freedom to withdraw, protection of personal data, and use of data in research. Only individuals who provided informed consent to participate in the study were allowed to proceed to the questionnaire. This study was approved by the ethics committee of the research university.
The questionnaires contained the Situations-in-School-PE (SIS-PE) scale (Escriva-Boulley, Guillet-Descas, et al., 2021) to assess four dimensions of teaching styles: autonomy support, structure, control, and chaos. We translated the SIS-PE into Japanese with the approval of the original authors, utilising back translation to ensure accuracy. The SIS-PE describes 12 teaching situations that commonly occur during physical education lessons, with four different ways that a teacher might respond to the situation. The teachers were asked to indicate how well each action describes their own style using a seven-point Likert scale (1 = does not describe me at all; 7 = describes me extremely well). Cronbach’s alpha of the Japanese version was .76 for autonomy support, .84 for structure, .81 for control, and .80 for chaos.
In addition, the Japanese version of the General Causality Orientation Scale (J-GCOS; Tobe et al., 2016) was used to measure teachers’ autonomy, control, and impersonal orientations. The J-GCOS consists of 12 situations in daily life, with three different responses that reflect the three causality orientations. The teachers were asked to indicate the degree of agreement using a seven-point Likert scale (1 = completely disagree; 7 = completely agree). Cronbach’s alpha of the Japanese version was .74 for autonomy orientation, .60 for control orientation, and .70 for impersonal orientation.
Valid responses were obtained from 302 teachers (231 men and 71 women, M teaching experience = 11.2 years). We conducted regression analyses to examine the relationships between causality orientation and teaching styles. Gender, age, and teaching experiences were the control variables. Variables with no meaningful zero value were grand mean centred.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsAs for the teacher background variables, female teachers scored significantly lower in the adoption of structure, control, and chaos than male teachers. The differences in teaching styles according to teacher sex could raise issues surrounding the gender balance in the school workplace. In Japan, approximately 70% of physical education teachers are male (MEXT, 2018). It might be practical to appoint more female teachers to create a comfortable teaching environment and positively impact pupils’ affective learning.
The results revealed that autonomy-oriented teachers were likely to engage in autonomy support and structure (i.e., need-supportive styles) and disengage in chaos. In addition, control and impersonal orientations were significantly correlated with the adoption of control and chaos (i.e., need-thwarting styles). These results suggested that autonomy orientation could facilitate the adoption of need-supportive styles, and the relationship may be mediated by autonomous forms of motivation (Hagger and Hamilton, 2021). In contrast, control and impersonal orientations could predict need-thwarting styles due to the belief that external pressures and control, such as rewards and threats, are effective in motivating students (Reeve, 2009).
The findings could guide teacher professional development, including pre-service teacher training, by raising awareness regarding beliefs that promote need-supportive versus need-thwarting teaching styles. Given the fact that the participants in this study were not informed of the results, they remained unaware of their own behavioural tendencies. In the future, however, these findings will need to be introduced into physical education teacher education programmes to promote behaviour changes through a process of awareness and reflection of one’s own beliefs and tendencies. Adopting optimal teaching styles would lead to greater affective learning achievement and better mental health among students (Ryan and Deci, 2020).
ReferencesBehzadnia, B., Adachi, P. J., Deci, E. L., & Mohammadzadeh, H. (2018). Associations between students' perceptions of physical education teachers' interpersonal styles and students' wellness, knowledge, performance, and intentions to persist at physical activity: A self-determination theory approach. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 39, 10–19.
Escriva-Boulley, G., Guillet-Descas, E., Aelterman, N., Vansteenkiste, M., Van Doren, N., Lentillon-Kaestner, V., & Haerens, L. (2021). Adopting the situation in school questionnaire to examine physical education teachers’ motivating and demotivating styles using a circumplex approach. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(14), 7342.
Escriva-Boulley, G., Haerens, L., Tessier, D., & Sarrazin, P. (2021). Antecedents of primary school teachers’ need-supportive and need-thwarting styles in physical education. European Physical Education Review, 27(4), 961–980.
Haerens, L., Aelterman, N., Vansteenkiste, M., Soenens, B., & Van Petegem, S. (2015). Do perceived autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching relate to physical education students' motivational experiences through unique pathways? Distinguishing between the bright and dark side of motivation. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 16, 26–36.
Hagger, M. S., & Hamilton, K. (2021). General causality orientations in self-determination theory: Meta-analysis and test of a process model. European Journal of Personality, 35(5), 710–735.
MEXT. (2018). Statistical Survey of School Teachers. https://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/toukei/chousa01/kyouin/1268573.htm (accessed 19 January 2023)
Reeve, J. (2009). Why teachers adopt a controlling motivating style toward students and how they can become more autonomy supportive. Educational Psychologist, 44(3), 159–175.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Publications.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 61, 101860.
Tobe, M., Nemoto, T., Tsujino, N., Yamaguchi, T., Katagiri, N., Fujii, C., & Mizuno, M. (2016). Characteristics of motivation and their impacts on the functional outcomes in patients with schizophrenia. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 65, 103–109.
18. Research in Sports Pedagogy
Paper
Psychometric Properties of a Questionnaire on Teachers’ Value Orientations in Physical Education: Future Physical Education Teachers and Physical Education Teachers
Andra Fernate, Zermena Vazne
Latvian Academy of Sport Education, Latvia
Presenting Author: Fernate, Andra;
Vazne, Zermena
The rapid growth of knowledge and its significant impact on professional and personal life is a fundamental condition for education to be one of the most powerful drivers for countries to achieve future prosperity. Teachers are the creators of our next generation, their beliefs and values play a leading role in the development and implementation of the curriculum, and their values also determine how they will teach.
Professional socialization is a nonlinear, continuous, interactive, transformative, developmental, personal, psychosocial and self-reinforcing process, which is formed in newcomers through internalizing the specific culture of a professional community, including expectations, values, beliefs, customs, traditions, and unwritten rules of the profession, as well as understanding the hierarchy and power structure, and the responsibilities. The initial and main outcomes of this professional socialization are the formation of professional identity and professional development (Sadeghi Avval Shahr, Yazdani, & Afshar, 2019). This research will focus on the personal aspect of teachers’ professional identity (Chere-Masopha, 2018), studying the beliefs of future physical education teachers and physical education teachers.
Jewett, Bain and Ennis (1995) determined five structured set of value orientations by investigating educational values of both physical education teachers and future physical education teachers: Disciplinary mastery (DM) – acquisition of specific motor skills. Learning process (LP), where the teacher acquires processes and specific skills required for good performance, learning independently, problem solving skills. Self-actualization (SA), where physical education (PE) teacher realizes their personal goals, values, and confidence for self-growth, nurturing personal growth, personal autonomy. Social responsibility (SR) – (formerly known as social reconstruction), perceives the class as a micro-society that pursues such goals as cooperation and group work while respecting each another, places high priority on societal needs and social change. Ecological integration (EI) – PE teachers respect the balance between the social dimension, the student, and the knowledge of the subject, emphasise on personal search for meaning by integrating natural and social environment. The value orientations inventory has been translated into different languages for studies in non-English speaking countries such as in French speaking Canada, Chinese, Flemish and Taiwanese.
In ECER2022 the authors presented the results of their research exploring the psychometric indicators of the Latvian version of the Questionnaire on Teachers’ Value Orientations in Physical Education (VOI- Short Form) for the future physical education teachers (Fernate & Vazne, 2022). In ECER2023 the authors aim is to present the results of the analysis of the psychometric indicators of the Latvian version of the Questionnaire on Teachers’ Value Orientations in Physical Education (VOI- Short Form) for the future physical education teachers and physical education teachers.
The aim of this research is to assess the psychometric indicators of the Latvian version of the Questionnaire on Teachers’ Value Orientations in Physical Education (VOI- Short Form) for the Future Physical Education Teachers and Physical Education Teachers.
The research question:
Will the psychometric indicators of the Latvian version of the short 50-statement 10-value orientations, statements characterizing the directions of future physical education teachers’ and physical education teachers’ value orientations, be in accordance with the psychometric indicators of the original version of the 50-statement Questionnaire on Teachers’ Value Orientations in Physical Education (Chen et al., 1997)?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe research first phase involved 82 respondents – future physical education teachers (39 women and 43 men), second phase 107 - physical education teachers (58 women, 49 men). The following methods were used in the research: the Latvian version of the Questionnaire on Physical Education Teachers’ Value Orientations (Chen et al., 1997); expert opinion methods; mathematical statistics (descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s coefficient alpha).
The adaptation of the questionnaire took place in several stages (Zhu & Chen, 2018; ITC, 2017). The forward-backward translation of the questionnaire was provided by professional English and Latvian philology specialists specializing in sport science. The apparent and content validity was determined. Four experts were invited to determine the content validity. The expert group consisted of 2 scholars, 1 practitioner, and 1 end user.
The questionnaire process and collection of respondents’ data took place anonymously, in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Human Rights. Respondents rated their responses to 50 questionnaire statements, which were summarised in 10 value orientation directions of forced-choice scales and 5 dimensions: disciplinary mastery (DM), characterized by one of the statements – I plan so that students would practice skills, abilities or fitness tasks; Learning process (LP) – For example, statement – I teach students how to divide the tasks of movement, skills, and physical fitness so as to emphasize the most important components of their learning; Self-actualization (SA), characterised by one of the statements – I teach students to take responsibility for their actions. Social responsibility (SR) – for example, statement – I teach students to work together to solve class/group issues. Ecological integration (EI), where one the characterising statements is – I teach students to try new activities to find the ones they like. Respondents rank the five statements in each direction using a different number on a 5-point scale (in which 1 = least important and 5 = most important) to indicate their value priority. Respondents consistently rank the statements representing one particular value orientation higher than others throughout the 10 sets. The collected data were analyzed to determine the validity (with a focus on the item rating means) and reliability evidence (with a focus on internal consistency by computing Cronbach’s alpha (Cronbach, 1951).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsIndicators of internal coherence of the questionnaire on future physical education teachers’ value orientations show a corresponding reliability of the translated Latvian version of the questionnaire, as evidenced by the total Cronbach’s coefficient alpha .925 with variation in dimensions from .723 to .888. But the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of all scales of the questionnaire on physical education teachers’ value orientations is .94, which indicates a high alpha value. This form is appropriate for the Latvian language and the Latvian cultural environment too. Variation in dimensions each of the scale’s ranges from .766 to .867. The highest indicators in terms of arithmetic mean and standard deviation were DM - 35.40±1, α=.744 on future physical education teachers’ value orientations, but 36.37±7.19, α=.774 on physical education teachers’ value orientations. This trend shows the extent to which the traditional approach - to focus on knowledge of the content and skills and performance-related knowledge. LP (34.2±7; α=.766) this dimension ranks second in the hierarchy of future teachers’ value orientations and second (35.48±7.16; α=.810) in the hierarchy of teachers’ value orientations, which emphasizes learning progress by adding new knowledge to what they have previously learned. In turn, the lowest arithmetic mean indicator is in the SR scale 31.14±8, α=.852 on future physical education teachers’ value orientations, which focus on pupils showing respect and cooperation, as well as valuing teamwork during physical activities and not only as a member of a group. But the lowest arithmetic mean indicator on physical education teachers’ value orientations is in the EI scale 34.11±7.31, α=.772, which indicates that the teacher can maintain a balance between the needs of the person and the group and integrate the socio-cultural goals. In this case, the main aim PE teacher’s further education is to promote skills for formation of a balanced critical thinking.
ReferencesChen, A., Ennis C.D., Loftus S. (1997). Refining the Value Orientation Inventory. Volume 68(4), 352-356 https://doi.org/10.1080/02701367.1997.10608016
Chere-Masopha, J. (2018). Personal landscapes of teacher professional identities versus digital technology adoption and integration in Lesotho schools. International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research, 17(3), 28-42.
Cronbach, L.J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests.
International Test Commission. (2017). The ITC Guidelines for Translating and Adapting Tests (Second edition). [www.InTestCom.org]
Jewett, A.E., Bain, L.L.,& Ennis, C.D. (1995) The Curriculum Process in Physical Education (2nd edition). Madison, WI: Brown & Benchmark
Psychometrika, 16, 297–334. doi:10.1007/BF02310555
Sadeghi Avval Shahr, H., Yazdani, S., & Afshar, L. (2019). Professional socialization: an analytical definition. Journal of medical ethics and history of medicine, 12, 17. https://doi.org/10.18502/jmehm.v12i17.2016
Zhu, W., & Chen, A. (2018). Value orientation inventory: Development, applications, and contributions. Kinesiology Review, 7(3), 206-210. https://doi.org/10.1123/kr.2018-0030
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