The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically reduced physical activity (PA) behaviors of many people. Physical education (PE) is considered one of the privileged instruments to promote youths’ PA. We aimed to investigate the effects of lockdown on PE teachers’ behaviors promoting their students’ out-of-school PA and differences between three European countries. A sample of 1146 PE teachers (59.5% females) from France, Italy, and Turkey answered an online questionnaire about guiding students to engage in out-of-school PA, helping them to set PA goals, encouraging in self-monitoring PA, the pedagogical formats of these behaviors and feedback asked to students. RM-MANCOVAs were performed with a two-time (before and during the lockdown), three country (France, Italy, Turkey), two gender factorial design, using teaching years and perceived health as covariates. A significant multivariate main effect time × country × gender (p < 0.001) was reported for the behaviors promoting students’ PA, with French and Italian teachers increasing some behaviors, while Turkish teachers showing opposite trends. Significant multivariate main effects time × country were found for formats supporting the behaviors (p < 0.001) and for asked feedback formats (p < 0.001). The massive contextual change imposed by lockdown caused different reactions in teachers from the three countries. Findings are informative for PA promotion and PE teachers’ education.

In the sport psychology literature, the use of self-talk strategies has proven effective for enhancing task performance, and preliminary evidence suggests that the effectiveness of self-talk can be partly attributed to attentional mechanisms. The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the effects of self-talk strategies on different attention functions, namely, alertness, vigilance, focused, selective, divided, and spatial attention. A between-subjects experimental design was adopted. Six experiments were conducted involving 255 (130 males and 125 females) participants (mean age 21.17 ± 2.31), assigned into experimental and control groups. A five-session protocol was implemented including baseline testing, training intervention, and final assessment. The Test Battery for Perception and Attention Functions from the Vienna Test System was used to assess attention functions. The analysis showed that in all experiments, in 14 out of 17 tests, the experimental groups had faster reaction times than the control groups, and a meta-analytic synthesis of the results showed a large effect size (d = 0.75). The findings suggest that self-talk benefit the attention functions and support postulations for an attentional interpretation of the facilitating effects of self-talk strategies on task performance.

Purpose: This study aimed to test the invariance of perceptions of the Spectrum teaching styles across Turkish and Greek preservice physical education teachers and to examine whether the styles could be classified into two clusters through self-determination theory. Greek (n = 298) and Turkish (n = 300) preservice teachers participated. Method: Cothran, Kulinna, and Ward’s questionnaire based on teachers’ use of and beliefs about teaching styles was used to examine their perceptions of the styles. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis revealed 11 factor indices and parameter estimates, suggesting that the 11-factor model fit the data. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis established metric measurement invariance across samples. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis showed that, for all higher-order models, the minimum requirement for invariance factor loading was met. The model comparison revealed that the styles could be categorized into four clusters from less to more autonomy-oriented. Conclusion: These findings might be useful to practitioners who want to use teaching styles in the promotion of students’ motivation in physical education.

Based on recent trends in positive psychology, on ancient Greek sport literature and particularly on Aristotle’s philosophy, the holistic, harmonious and internal motivational components of excellence and their implications for students’ motivation for physical activity, health and well-being are presented. While modern motivational theories and research have partly addressed the holistic and internal motivational components of excellence, they have yet to address its harmonious part. In this article it is explained why all three components of excellence are required to promote eudaimonic well-being, which is the ultimate aim of Olympism. It is argued also that the conceptualization of hedonic-eudaimonic well-being should be primarily based on the “me” versus “us” meaning. While current physical activity experiences more often reflect a hedonistic perspective, to promote health and well-being for all, an eudaimonic perspective in teaching in physical education and youth sport is needed. This should primarily focus on the promotion of Olympic ideals, such as excellence, friendship, and respect. These three ideals and well-being are all very much interconnected, when all three components of excellence exist in excess. To promote excellence, Olympic ideals, and well-being, the core ideas of an educational philosophy promoting excellence in physical education and youth sport are presented.

The main aim of this study was to investigate the construct validity of a new MUltidimensional MOtivational Climate questionnaire in Physical Education (PE) at the Situational level of generality (MUMOC-PES), capturing four dimensions of empowering (autonomy support, task-involvement, relatedness support, structure) and three dimensions of disempowering (controlling, relatedness thwarting, ego-involvement) climate. Nine hundred and fifty-six adolescent students completed the new measure alongside measures of mastery and performance approach/avoidance climate and satisfaction. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the construct validity of the MUMOC-PES. Student satisfaction in PE corresponded positively to empowering and negatively to disempowering climate dimensions. Controlling for age, gender and within-class individual differences in perceived empowering and disempowering dimensions, class average scores on perceived empowering climate had significant effects on student satisfaction, implying predictive validity for the MUMOC-PES. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) suggested that perceived autonomy support and relatedness thwarting had direct positive and negative effects on satisfaction respectively. Moreover, effects of perceived structure and thwarting relationships on satisfaction were mediated through a mastery climate construct capturing the linkage between perception and mastery goal. The results are discussed in relation to existing measures and literature on motivational climate and the future use of MUMOC-PES in research and PE teachers’ training.