Grounded in SDT, several studies have highlighted the role of teachers’ motivating and demotivating styles for students’ motivation, learning, and physical activity in physical education (PE). However, most of these studies focused on a restricted number of motivating strategies (e.g., offering choice) or dimensions (e.g., autonomy support). Recently, researchers have developed the Situations-in-School (i.e., SIS-Education) questionnaire, which allows one to gain a more integrative and fine-grained insight into teachers’ engagement in autonomy-support, structure, control, and chaos through a circular structure (i.e., a circumplex). Although teaching in PE resembles teaching in academic courses in many ways, some of the items of the original situation-based questionnaire (e.g., regarding homework) are irrelevant to the PE context. In the present study, we therefore sought to develop a modified, PE-friendly version of this earlier validated SIS-questionnaire—the SIS-PE. Findings in a sample of Belgian (N = 136) and French (N = 259) PE teachers, examined together and as independent samples, showed that the variation in PE teachers’ motivating styles in this adapted version is also best captured by a circumplex structure, with four overarching styles and eight subareas differing in their level of need support and directiveness. The SIS-PE possesses excellent convergent and concurrent validity. With the adaptations being successful, great opportunities for future research on PE teachers (de-)motivating styles are created.

Research suggests that physical education (PE) teachers can play a crucial role in the promotion of students’ physical activity. Grounded in Self-Determination Theory, this study investigated how students’ perceptions of PE teachers (de-)motivating style relate to students’ device-based physical activity levels during PE. Moreover, it was examined whether students’ motivation plays an intervening role in this relation and whether students’ physical activity differs according to their gender and lesson topic. A sample of 302 secondary school students aged between 11 and 16 years (M = 13.05, SD = 1.04) completed a questionnaire assessing their perceptions of teachers’ (de-)motivating style and their personal motivation toward PE. Students also wore ActiGraph GT3X accelerometers during the PE lesson. Multilevel structural equation modeling revealed that the teachers’ motivating style had a significant positive relation with students’ autonomous motivation, both at the student level and the class level, and teachers’ controlling style had a significant positive relation with students’ controlled motivation and amotivation at both levels. However, in terms of students’ physical activity levels, students’ gender, the lesson topic, and teachers’ controlling style seemed to be more decisive than students’ motivation and teachers’ motivating style.

Previous Self-Determination Theory (SDT) research has highlighted the impact of physical education (PE) teachers’ (de)motivating styles on students’ motivation, in-class moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), and sedentary behaviour. However, most studies relied on questionnaires to assess PE teachers’ (de)motivating styles, and the few that used observations focused primarily on one specific (de)motivating style in relation to motivational outcomes, overlooking behavioural outcomes. This study advances SDT-based research by examining associations between PE teachers’ observed (de)motivating styles (i.e. four styles, eight approaches, and 43 behaviours), students’ motivation (i.e. intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, external regulation, and amotivation), and students’ device-based in-class MVPA and sedentary behaviour. A total of 79 secondary school PE teachers and 885 students participated. One PE lesson per teacher was recorded and (de)motivating styles were rated using the Situation-in-School Physical Education-Coder (SIS-PE-Coder). Students completed an online questionnaire to assess their motivation and wore Actigraph accelerometers to measure in-class MVPA and sedentary behaviour. Linear mixed-effects models, controlling for the lesson topic, and students’ sex and age, revealed that PE teachers’ observed attuning approach related positively and demanding and abandoning approaches related negatively to students’ intrinsic motivation. The demanding approach also related positively to students’ introjected regulation. Notably, the demanding approach showed a dual pathway, negatively relating to intrinsic motivation but positively relating to in-class MVPA. In turn, intrinsic motivation was positively related to in-class MVPA. By relying on observations, the findings suggest that PE teachers can optimize student motivation by being more attuning and less demanding and abandoning.