Background: Consistent with self-determination theory (SDT), teachers may differ in the motivating style used to motivate students in physical education (PE). When relying on need-supportive behaviors, teachers attempt to provide students with opportunities for choices and initiative (autonomy support), valuable information and feedback (competence support), and an emotional and affective environment (relatedness support). Alternatively, teachers relying on need-thwarting behaviors tend to adopt a controlling language (autonomy thwarting), unclear goals toward the task (competence thwarting), and cold links with students (relatedness thwarting). While competence, autonomy, and relatedness supportive and thwarting behaviors are theoretically distinct in the instructional practice, every teaching behavior may co-occur to different degrees. Grounded in SDT, the only existing person-centered study in PE showed that PE teachers’ autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching behaviors can be combined through the students’ eyes, being associated with different motivational outcomes. Purpose: Adopting a person-centered approach, this research aimed to extend previous knowledge by examining how different combinations of students’ perceptions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness supportive and thwarting teaching behaviors are associated with students’ need satisfaction, need frustration, and motivation in PE. Method: A sample of 478 middle school students (53.97% girls) participated in the study. First, a two-step cluster analysis using autonomy, competence, and relatedness supportive and thwarting behaviors was run to identify different motivating teaching profiles. Subsequently, a multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted to examine differences between the retained clusters and students’ need-based experiences and motivational regulations. Results: Two of these profiles were characterized by the dominant presence either of need-supportive (i.e. ‘high need-support – low need-thwarting’) or need-thwarting behaviors (i.e. ‘low need-support – high need-thwarting’), while they were found to be similarly present in the two remaining profiles (i.e. ‘moderate need-support – need-thwarting’, and ‘moderate need-support – high need-thwarting’). The ‘high need-support – low need-thwarting’ profile obtained the highest scores on need satisfaction and autonomous forms of motivation, accompanied by the lowest levels of need frustration and amotivation. The ‘moderate need-support – need-thwarting’ profile reflected low scores on need frustration, introjected and external regulation, and amotivation. The ‘moderate need-support – need-thwarting’ and the ‘low need-support – high need-thwarting’ profiles showed the highest scores on need frustration, introjected and external regulation, and amotivation. Conclusions: This research underscores that teachers may combine need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviors in their instructional practice. Results revealed that the ‘high need-support – low need-thwarting’ profile showed the most optimal outcomes, while the ‘low need-support – high need thwarting’ profile yielded the least optimal outcomes. Given that the ‘high need-support – low need-thwarting’ profile showed a more optimal pattern of outcomes than the ‘moderate need-support – high need-thwarting’ profile and the ‘moderate need-support – need-thwarting’, results suggest that students’ perception of need-thwarting teaching behaviors is detrimental even when the instructor is additionally perceived to be need-supportive. PE teachers are recommended not only to develop a motivating teaching style characterized by high levels of need-supportive behaviors, but also to avoid need-thwarting behaviors in their instructional practice, in order to enhance students’ motivational experiences.

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the educational landscape worldwide. One year after the disease outbreak, blended learning, which combines distance and face-to-face learning, became an alternative to fully online learning to address the demands of ensuring students’ health and education. Physical education teachers faced an additional challenge, given the experiential nature of their subject, but research on teachers’ perspectives is scarce. This study aims to explore high school physical education teachers’ perceptions of the potential, advantages, and disadvantages of the blended learning model of instruction. An online survey was used to register the views of 174 Spanish high school physical education teachers (120 men and 54 women). The main findings revealed that physical education teachers considered that blended learning, compared with full face-to-face learning, implied a work overload, worsened social relationships, and did not help to increase students’ motivation. Likewise, most teachers considered the physical activity performed by students during the blended learning period as being lower than usual. Furthermore, teachers reported that the students from lower-income families were the ones that experienced a lack of technological means the most. These results may guide both present and future policies and procedures for blended physical education. More research is needed to analyze the usefulness of blended learning in high school physical education.

Smartphone applications (apps) are thought to be an adequate instructional strategy not only to improve the quality of the teaching in physical education (PE), but also to effectively promote leisure-time physical activity (PA) of adolescent students in this context. Although the use of smartphone apps has been generalized in PE, little is known about the curricular approach of smartphone apps to be implemented by teacher to teach specific curricular contents in PE lessons. Therefore, the aim of this research was threefold: a) to conduct a systematic search for smartphone apps focused on PA and sport; b) to assess the features, content and quality of every included smartphone app; and c) to analyze the relationships between every selected app and the secondary PE curriculum. Systematic searches were completed on Google Play Store from January 2021 to March 2021. Apps were included when they met: main goal focused on PA and sport; permitted use by underage; they are free; user scores of at least 4. The app selection process was carried out by several reviewers and concordance measures were estimated. Additionally, an app quality assessment was independently conducted by three reviewers. A total of 18 apps focused on PA were included. Particularly, eight apps were suitable for fitness, health and quality of life curricular content; two for sports content; four for body expression content; and four apps for outdoor PA content. The mean quality score was 4.00. Apps could be helpful for teachers to implement the secondary PE curriculum and effectively promote PA among adolescent students.

One of the main goals for physical education is to develop the students’ moral and ethical domain, where sportsmanship promotion is considered a key curricular component to tackle the achievement of this goal. This research aims to examine the influence of sport education on sportsmanship orientations in high school students. The participants were 148 (52.70% female; M_age = 17.04, SD_age = 0.99) high school students who were randomized into an experimental group (n = 74), which received 16 basketball lessons under sport education conditions, and a control group (n = 74), which received 16 basketball lessons following a traditional teaching approach. Pre-intervention and post-intervention measures on sportsmanship orientations were collected in both groups. A 2 (time: pre-test and post-test) x 2 (group: Sport Education and Traditional Teaching) multivariate analysis of variance test was performed on the five sportsmanship orientations. The results showed, for time x group interactions, the absence of significant multivariate effects in the level of the five sportsmanship orientations among both groups at pre-test (Pillai’s trace = 0.06, p = 0.145). At post-test, significant multivariate effects were found in the level of each sportsmanship orientation between both groups in favor of the Sport Education group (Pillai’s trace = 0.38, p < 0.001). Furthermore, regarding within-group pre-test to post-test differences, while there were nonsignificant multivariate effects (Pillai’s trace = 0.03, p = 0.469) for the Traditional Teaching group; significant multivariate effects (Pillai’s trace = 0.43, p < 0.001) were found for the Sport Education group, showing an increase in the level of respect for social conventions, respect for rules and referees, and full commitment and respect for opponents. There were also nonsignificant effects across gender (inter-group analysis: Pillai’s trace = 0.08, p = 0.068; time x gender interaction: Pillai’s trace = 0.03, p = 0.497) and after-school sports (inter-group analysis: Pillai’s trace = 0.02, p = 0.776; time x after-school interaction: Pillai’s trace = 0.01, p = 0.981). In conclusion, sport education is an effective pedagogical model to be taken into consideration by physical education teachers in order to optimally promote the high school student’s moral and ethical education via the development of sportsmanship orientations in the context of school physical education.

Grounded in Self-Determination Theory, the objective of this study was to adapt the Interpersonal Behaviors Questionnaire (IBQ) to the Spanish physical education (PE) context and to examine its psychometric properties using a sample of Spanish secondary school students. The participants were 478 secondary school students (220 boys and 258 girls; M_age = 14.56, SD_age = 1.06) who received two 60-minute compulsory PE classes per week. A confirmatory factor analysis psychometrically underpinned a 24-item six-factor correlated model (i.e. autonomy, competence and relatedness supportive and autonomy, competence and relatedness thwarting behaviors) that was invariant across gender and age. A reliability examination found appropriate levels of internal consistency and temporal stability for the instrument’s six factors. A partial correlation analysis showed that while the three types of need-supportive behaviors from PE teachers were positively correlated with need satisfaction and autonomous motivation; the three types of need-thwarting behaviors from PE teachers were positively correlated with need frustration, controlled motivation and amotivation. Thus, this study showed that the Spanish version of the IBQ is valid and reliable for assessing PE students’ perceptions of the six specific types of interpersonal behavior that may be adopted by PE teachers.