The concept institutional integration in education refers to the process by which a student becomes academically and socially integrated into the environment of a post-secondary institution. It has been extensively discussed in the literature (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1980; Tinto, 1993). It can be assumed to mean that “student’s potential to benefit from academic experiences [which] requires that the student is able to meet the institution’s educational demands and that the institution is able to meet the student’s educational desires” (Clark et al., 2014, p. 31). It relates to the process that students go through when entering higher education, beginning with their personal qualities at the moment of admission and continuing with the quality of the institution that receives them. The term institutional integration encompasses not only the academic aspects of a student’s adaptation to the new institution, but also their social interactions and sense of belonging within the campus community (Oxendine and Taub, 2021). Thus, it is crucial for students to feel connected to their academic environment in order to thrive and succeed in their educational pursuits. Hence, institutional integration is considered a dynamic, ongoing process that maximizes students’ achievement of knowledge, skills, and dispositions that support their academic and social growth. It is a multifaceted approach that involves redefining students’ academic experience inside and outside of the classroom. According to Araújo et al. (2014), students’ academic performance, social integration, motivation, and attrition are related to the transition phase to higher education, which is considered crucial for students’ adaptation. At first-year universities, students attempt to establish new social relationships and acclimate to a new environment. Therefore, the desire to belong plays a crucial role in their integration into higher education (Maunder, 2018), as it is fundamental in establishing and sustaining strong relationships with others, maintaining motivation and enjoyment, and promoting higher education achievements (Gillen-O’Neel, 2019; Pedler et al., 2022). According to Lakhal et al. (2020), the extent to which students can adapt to their academic surroundings significantly impacts their determination to continue their education or discontinue it.

According the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) of Ryan and Deci (2017), three fundamental needs that are universally recognized including autonomy, which encompasses feelings of self-governance, self-acceptance, and self-determination, competence which refers to feelings of talent, ability, efficacy, and capability, and relatedness which encompasses a sense of belonging, intimacy, and connection to others. These three needs are essential for individuals to thrive and experience a sense of fulfillment in their lives. Autonomy allows individuals to have a sense of control and agency over their actions, competence enables them to feel capable and skilled in their endeavors, and relatedness fosters a sense of connection and belonging within social relationships. The concept of motivation is categorized into six levels of self-regulation, ranging from the highest to the lowest degree: intrinsic, integrated, identified, introjective, extrinsic, and amotivation. Motivation was demonstrated to have a direct effect on academic performance and an indirect effect through the mediation of academic integration (Clark et al., 2014). Research findings indicate that meeting fundamental needs leads to a higher level of intrinsic motivation (Vallerand, 2007). According to Vergara-Morales and Del Valle (2021), the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (PNS) indirectly influences students’ intrinsic motivation through academic integration. The researchers concluded that academic integration plays a crucial role in fostering the growth of intrinsic motivation toward learning. Jeno et al. (2023) noted that in-class teachers’ autonomy support actions affect students’ intrinsic motivation and sense of competence. While other researchers (Van Rooij et al., 2018; Vergara-Morales and Del Valle, 2021) have demonstrated that motivation is positively correlated with academic integration and that personal choices related to learning activities foster students’ integration into university life and thus aid their academic achievements. Recent studies (Murray et al., 2022; Othman et al., 2022; Alharbi, 2024) highlighted issues related to female students’ motivation and sport awareness, which manifest as salient beliefs, cognitive impairment of the relevance of sports, and misunderstanding of the characteristics of physical activities.

Conversely, research has indicated a noteworthy association between basic PNS and the institutional integration of students. High PNS levels have been shown to be positively correlated with elevated levels of school adjustment, thereby promoting academic accomplishments and success (Raižienë et al., 2017; Mohamedhoesein and Crul, 2018). In addition, Clark et al. (2014) revealed that academic integration acts as a mediator of school achievement. This suggests that academic integration serves as a mechanism through which motivating factors can exert their influence on academic outcomes.

Perceived enjoyment is often seen as one of the most important factors for maintaining regular PA (Woods et al., 2012; Rodrigues et al., 2021). Physical activity enjoyment (PAE) occurs when students perceive an activity as pleasant (Lohbeck et al., 2019). This concept explores three separate dimensions of student satisfaction with PE: the pleasure experienced before engaging in PE, the positive state of flow experienced during PE, and the desired outcome of recovery after participating in PE (Engels and Freund, 2019). PAE is a major reason why people exercise in the long run. It is also a significant aspect of motivating and maintaining individuals’ engagement in sporting activities (Doolen and Bixby, 2017; Yan et al., 2023). According to previous studies, the more students enjoy engaging in physical education classes, the more they participate in extra class PA (Chu et al., 2017; Berki and Tarjányi, 2022). Although enjoyment is recognized as important for maintaining an active lifestyle, there is limited understanding of how to promote enjoyment in PE and sports. Recently, Rodrigues et al. (2021) recommended the use of nonconventional models in PE aiming to increase the enjoyment of students, while Van Rooij et al. (2018) highlighted the benefits of using gamified exercises in enhancing students’ enjoyment perception. Therefore, gaining awareness of which elements influence students’ perceptions of enjoyment in PE is a critical precondition for optimally promoting interest in PAE. For instance, Engels and Freund (2020) presented evidence that social characteristics and perceived competence are among the most important variables in PAE.

The question of what determines institutional integration for novice students in their host universities remains crucial for researchers, students, faculty, and program makers. Success in this transition phase foster learning, retention, and decrease the dropout rate (Ma et al., 2019). In university context, novice students need to adapt academically, socially, and emotionally to their new environment. Enjoying and becoming academically, socially integrated are important preconditions for successful learning. Indeed, Ömeroğulları and Gläser-Zikuda (2022) highlighted positive effects of school enjoyment on students’ achievement and social integration in school context. However, our understanding of the associations among enjoyment and student integration in university life in the Saudi context is still limited. It seems that there are direct and indirect relationships between enjoyment, and institutional integration, and a mediating effects of motivation, and PNS.

Given that a few studies have focused on the relationships among Saudi female PNS, motivation, and achievement in PE (Al Shahrani, 2020; Aljehani et al., 2022; Frikha et al., 2022, 2024); that students’ motivation is a solid framework for enjoyment in PE lessons (Navarro-Patón et al., 2019); Hence, we wanted to investigate the psychological mechanisms that have the potential to alter the connections formed between the enjoyment in physical activities and the level of integration of Saudi female PE students into university life. The results will provide an understanding of how students’ motivation and PNS intervene in the promotion of enjoyment perception and how they foster students’ institutional integration (SII). By understanding and promoting institutional integration, educators and administrators can help create a supportive and inclusive environment that enhances student learning and development (Cabir and Mardikyan, 2021). Therefore, this study tests the hypothesis that the enjoyment affects SII in female PE students through the mediation of PNS (autonomy, competence and relatedness) and motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic).

The current investigation employs a quantitative cross-sectional design. For better representability, female students majoring in PE were randomly selected from four public universities situated in the western, central, northern, and eastern regions of Saudi Arabia. These universities collectively had 1,300 active female students. To ensure a reliable sample, the study assumed a prevalence (p) of 50%, a confidence level of 95%, a margin of error (e) of 5%, and an associated z score of 1.96. Consequently, the sample size (n) was determined to be 297 participants using Daniel’s (1999) formula. However, to enhance student engagement, the questionnaire link was sent to nearly all regular PE female students at the selected universities, resulting in 1300 requests after receiving emails from the Dean of Information Technology. Ultimately, 507 positive responses were received, which was deemed the final sample size. The research protocol was approved by the King Faisal Ethics Committee under reference number (KFU-REC-2022- DEC –ETHICS-414).

Female physical education students from the four selected Saudi universities (Taif University, King Saud University, Hail University, and Hafr Al-Batin University) were invited to participate in the study. The inclusion criteria were as follows: (i) Study regularity in a PE department or college. Students having less than 75% of attendance were not asked to participate in (ii) the presence of practical and theoretical courses on the student’s schedule or (iii) the completion of all questionnaire questions. The study participants were provided with comprehensive information regarding the purpose of the research and agreed to participate. To ensure confidentiality, all respondents were guaranteed that their identities would remain anonymous, and no personal details that could disclose their identities were requested. Prior to proceeding with the questionnaire, participants were required to provide written consent by selecting a specific checkbox.

In the present investigation, we collected demographic information (age, sex, weight, height, study level, and grade point average), and we used items from four questionnaires: the PE autonomy relatedness competence (PE-ARCS), the PE motivation scales (PE-MS) of Sulz et al. (2016), the Questionnaire for the Assessment of Students’ Enjoyment in Physical Education (QUAEPE) of Lohbeck et al. (2019), and the adapted Questionnaire of Students’ Institutional Integration (QSII) of Pascarella and Terenzini (1980).

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted using the principal component analysis extraction method and varimax rotation. In terms of the QUAEPE, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) sampling adequacy surpassed the acceptable threshold of 0.6 (KMO = 0.757). Additionally, the result of Bartlett’s sphericity test was found to be statistically significant (p < 0.001). Three components with eigenvalues greater than 1 (3.851, 3.161, and 2.834) were identified and retained, resulting in a cumulative variance of 84.279%. Similarly, for the QSII, the KMO sampling adequacy exceeded the acceptable threshold (KMO = 0.625), and Bartlett’s sphericity test yielded a statistically significant result (p < 0.001). Two components with eigenvalues greater than 1 (2.406 and 1.134) were identified and retained, resulting in a cumulative variance of 70.803%.

The QUAEPE’s internal reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha values, which were found to be 0.902 for all items and 0.830, 0.899, and 0.855 for the pleasure, flow, and recovery subscales, respectively. The QSII also demonstrated good internal reliability, with a Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.738. These findings indicate that the Arabic versions of both the QUAEPE and QSII scales are reliable and valid measures for assessing enjoyment and student institutional integration, respectively.

In total, 507 female PE students participated in the study, for a response rate of 39%. Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the variables, age, body mass index, university level, and GPA.

The results revealed significant correlations between the SII and PAE (r = 0.517, p < 0.001); between the SII and all mediators (autonomy, r = 0.537, p < 0.001; competence, r = 0.557, p < 0.001; relatedness, r = 0.675, p < 0.001; intrinsic motivation, r = 0.429, p < 0.001; and extrinsic motivation, r = 0.406, p < 0.001), as well as between enjoyment and all mediators (competence, r = 0.496, p < 0.01; relatedness, r = 0.001). 494, p < 0.01; intrinsic motivation, r = 0.464, p < 0.001; and extrinsic motivation, r = 0.354, p < 0.001. The correlations between the study variables allowed a mediation model to be constructed to explore the mechanism of all the mediators’ effects on the relationship between the SII and PAE incidence (Table 2).

This study assessed the mediating role of PNS (autonomy, competence and relatedness perceptions) and motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic) on the relationship between the PAE and SII in female physical education students. The results revealed a significant indirect effect of the PAE on SII through autonomy (b = 0.03, t = 2.53, p < 0.01), relatedness (b = 0.12, t = 7.03, p < 0.001), and extrinsic motivation (b = 0.72, t = 8.10, p < 0.001). No significant indirect effects through intrinsic motivation (b = 0.02, t = 1.65, p > 0.05), and competence perception (b = 0.01, t = 0.53, p > 0.05) were detected. Furthermore, the direct effect of the PAE on SII was also significant (b = 0.16, t = 5.87, p < 0.001). Hence, autonomy, relatedness, and extrinsic motivation partially mediate the relationship between PAE and SII. The mediation summary is presented in Table 3.

The coefficients c, c’, a1, b1, a3, b3, and a5, b5 were all significant, indicating that autonomy, relatedness, and extrinsic motivation played a partial intermediary role in the relation between PAe and SII. Bootstrap methods were used to repeat the sampling process 5,000 times to test the mediating effect. All 95% confidence intervals of the mediation effects of paths do not include 0, which indicates that the mediation effects are statistically significant and account for 42% of the effect. In summary, the results showed that the PAE can directly affect SII incidence. SII is also impacted via the mediation of autonomy, relatedness, and extrinsic motivation perceptions (Figure 2).

The main objective of this study was to elucidate the relationship between the PAE and SII and the maditing effect of PNS and motivation perceptions. Understanding these relationships remains a crucial step in fostering the academic performance and the integration of Saudi female PE students in universities. Nonetheless, some limitations merit discussion. First, the cross-sectional design employed in this study may not be sufficient to establish causal relationships between the variables under investigation. Consequently, longitudinal studies are needed to gain a deeper understanding of how students’ SII and PAEs evolve over time and in relation to their academic accomplishments. Second, the study did not consider the teaching strategies used by teachers (Rodrigues et al., 2021), students’ social characteristics (Engels and Freund, 2020), which are considered essential variables in PAE improvement. Further studies are needed that focus on teachers’ in-class behaviors and didactical choices in PE sessions or on students’ adaptation to their new life at university with regard to their perceptions of homesickness (English et al., 2017).