Will Your Students Choose to Be Physically Active?

Abstract

Our goal as teachers should not just be to give our students a bag of tools that they may or may not use. Our goal should be to enable them to actually want to use those tools. This article explores the importance of autonomy-supportive teaching.

According to SHAPE America's National Standards for K–12 Physical Education, “The goal of physical education is to develop physically literate individuals who have the knowledge, skills, and confidence to enjoy a lifetime of healthful physical activity” (SHAPE America – Society of Health and Physical Educators, 2014, p. 11). The standards indicate the content in the psychomotor, cognitive and affective domains that students should learn to be successful in practicing a healthful, physically active lifestyle. However, when students graduate from their physical education program, even if they have these capabilities, the question remains: will they actually choose to be physically active?

One could argue that once students are no longer in class, it is out of our hands. We have given them the tools they need to be successful, but they must choose to use those tools. There is evidence, however, that in addition to what we teach, how we teach can influence the likelihood that students will actually make the right choices for themselves.

Autonomy is the inner endorsement of one's actions. When people are autonomous in their behavior, they want to participate (as opposed to being forced to do it), they feel free in their actions (as opposed to being controlled), and they perceive that they have choice over how they engage in the activity (as opposed to having the specifics of their participation dictated to them; Reeve, Nix, & Hamm, 2003). According to self-determination theory, autonomy is one of the three basic psychological needs (in addition to competence and relatedness) that all humans must have satisfied to achieve healthy self-motivation and well-being (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Research shows that when students perceive that their autonomy is supported in physical education class, they are more likely to be intrinsically motivated to engage in physical activity, they have more positive attitudes toward activity, they have greater intentions to be active, and they actually participate in more leisure-time physical activity (Hagger, Chatzisarantis, Culverhouse, & Biddle, 2003).

Here is the problem: overall, teachers are not good at autonomy support. In fact, we usually prefer just the opposite — to be in control. A controlling teacher uses personal interactions and behaviors to pressure students to think, feel or behave a certain way (Reeve, 2009). Teachers who control gain compliance from students. Conversely, teachers who are autonomy supportive encourage engagement, which encompasses not just behavior but also emotional involvement, personal investment, and having a voice. Obviously, the latter is preferable — students who are engaged will learn more during the activity and are more likely to transfer what they learn to their life outside of the gym or classroom. There are a lot of reasons that teachers tend to adopt a controlling style (Pelletier, Seguin-Levesque, & Legault, 2002). These include pressures from “above,” such as administrative policies and societal expectations. A teacher who is in control is often perceived to be effective. There are also pressures from “below,” when students are uninterested or unmotivated and the teacher adopts a controlling style in response.

Teachers who control gain compliance from students. Conversely, teachers who are autonomy supportive encourage engagement, which encompasses not just behavior but also emotional involvement, personal investment, and having a voice.

So can teachers be more autonomy supportive? The answer is yes. Numerous studies have shown that teachers can change their teaching style. Johnmarshall Reeve, a leading researcher and theorist in this area, proposed the following three tasks to becoming more autonomy supportive:

1.	Become less controlling. Try to avoid using controlling sentiment, controlling language and controlling behaviors, and try to become more aware of the factors (the pressures from above and below) that are pushing you to utilize these methods.
2.	Want to be more autonomy supportive. At the risk of overusing the word “autonomy,” you need to be autonomous in your decision to support students' autonomy. You must want to do it. We need to recognize that when we nurture our students' inner motivational resources, as opposed to just trying to gain compliance from them, they will benefit greatly. However, students are not the only ones who benefit from an autonomy-supportive teaching style. Teachers who use this teaching style report a greater sense of personal accomplishment in teaching and significantly less emotional exhaustion from teaching (Roth, Assor, Kanat-Maymon, & Kaplan, 2007).
3.	Learn how to be autonomy supportive. Reeve (2006) identified the actions that embody autonomy-supportive teaching. A thorough discussion of these behaviors is outside of the scope of this editorial, and I encourage readers to seek out any of the articles by Reeve (2006, 2009; Reeve et al., 2003) for more information.

Nurture Inner-motivational Resources. Instead of using incentives or consequences to get students to participate, build your units and lessons around students' preferences and interests. Survey your students at the beginning of the year to see what their interests are, or offer choices within your curriculum from which students can select.

Rely on Informational Language. When students are showing a lack of effort or poor performance, instead of criticizing and pressuring them to comply or do better, communicate expectations through messages that are noncontrolling and flexible. For instance, instead of telling a student they are doing poorly (critical) and telling them they need to do better (pressuring), you could state that you noticed the student was not really engaged in class (informational) and ask them why (noncontrolling), with the goal of identifying ways to motivate or engage the student going forward.

Promote Valuing. Convey rationales for the activities that students do not want to participate in. “Why do we have to run the PACER?” Not because, “I said so.” Instead, explain to students how the FITNESSGRAM® scores relate to their personal health, and how they will have the opportunity to analyze their fitness scores and design their own goals and individual physical activity plan. If students see the value of an activity, they are more likely to want to participate in it.

Convey rationales for the activities that students do not want to participate in. “Why do we have to run the PACER?” Not because, “I said so.” Instead, explain to students how the FITNESSGRAM® scores relate to their personal health.

Acknowledge and Accept Expressions of Negative Affect. You cannot please everyone all of the time. There are always going to be instances when students do not want to participate, and they will complain. When this happens, acknowledge the students' feelings as a valid reaction to the situation, and then fall back on the other three behaviors identified above. People do not change their attitudes because they are told to do so, and telling a student that he or she needs an “attitude adjustment” is not going to be productive.

It is also essential that teachers provide adequate structure in their gyms and classrooms to go along with autonomy support. Clear classroom expectations, explicit directions and guidance for learning activities, and regular congruent feedback provide a solid framework within which students can apply their autonomous actions. Autonomy without structure will yield a learning environment that is overly permissive and lacks direction.

Our goal as teachers should not just be to give our students a bag of tools that they may or may not use. Our goal should be to enable them to actually want to use those tools. If we want our students to choose to be physically active when they are out on their own, we need to be consciously developing their sense of volition and self-motivation through autonomy-supportive teaching when they are in our classroom. If we rely on controlling actions and sentiments to get compliance from them, it is unlikely that they will continue to engage in the desired behaviors once they are no longer under our control.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Benjamin A. Sibley

Benjamin A. Sibley ([email protected]) is an associate professor in the Department of Recreation Management and Physical Education at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC.