HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Sport Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1599833
The effects of physical exercise on the time management of college students: a chain mediation effect test
Provisionally accepted
Yong Jiang*
岳 曹- College of Physical Education, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
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In an era of increasing academic pressures and digital distractions, time management has become an important competency for college students, with significant implications for their academic performance, psychological well-being, and lifelong success.Drawing on the frameworks of social cognitive theory and neurobehavioral science, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of physical activity on college students' time management ability and its psychotransmission mechanisms, with a particular focus on the interlocking mediating roles of sensation-seeking and self-efficacy. A questionnaire was administered to 714 Chinese university students (mean age 20.3±1.8 years), and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM, a statistical method for analyzing complex relationships among variables) and the Bootstrap method (a re-sampling technique for assessing statistical significance).The results indicated that (1) physical activity had a significant and strong positive predictive effect on college students' time management ability (β = 0.416, p < 0.001); (2) sensation seeking (effect size = 0.067) and self-efficacy (effect size = 0.065) each played a moderately independent mediator role; and (3) the chained mediation paths formed by the two (effect size = 0. 017)further explained 3.31% of the variance, suggesting that physical activity indirectly optimized time management through the sequential path of "stimulus-driven behavioral choice → reinforcing efficacy beliefs → optimizing goal execution."In addition, it was found that the degree of exercise structuring (e.g., a team training program) significantly enhanced the cascade effect (β = 0.15, p < 0.05), whereas high-intensity interval training (HIIT) may weaken the transfer efficiency due to short-term cognitive load.The findings contribute to the construction of an integrated "behavioral-psychological-behavioral" model that reveals the complex mechanisms by which physical activity affects time management, and practically suggests that colleges and universities should design a collaborative program of "structured physical education curriculum + cognitive training" to systematically improve students' timemanagement ability and academic efficacy.
Keywords: physical exercise, Time Management, sensation seeking, self-efficacy, chain broker
Received: 25 Mar 2025; Accepted: 19 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jiang and 曹. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yong Jiang, College of Physical Education, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
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