ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1606642
The effect of family support on junior high school students' engagement in physical education --a moderated chain mediation model
Provisionally accepted
- College of Physical Education, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China
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Introduction: Engagement in physical education constitutes an interactive process integrating experiential psychology and behavior, which positively contributes to sustaining adolescents' long-term physical activity adherence. This study explored the effects of family support on junior high school students' engagement in physical education, along with the mediating roles of academic self-concept and achievement goal orientation, and the moderating role of academic burnout within this mediation pathway. Methods: The study used the Family Support Scale, Engagement in Physical Education Scale, Academic Self-Concept Scale, Achievement Goal Orientation Scale, and Academic Burnout Scale to administer questionnaires to 1,059 junior high school students. Statistical analysis was performed on the processed data using SPSS 26.0. Mediation and moderation effects were examined respectively using Process 3.4 and Model 91 in the PROCESS macro, with the mediation effects further verified using AMOS 28.0. Results: (1) Family support significantly and positively predicts junior high school students' level of engagement in physical education; (2) Academic self-concept and achievement goal orientation serve not only as simple mediators in the influence of family support on engagement in physical education, but also transmit this influence through a chain: family support → academic self-concept → achievement goal orientation → engagement in physical education. (3) Academic burnout moderates between academic self-concept and achievement goal orientation.
Keywords: family support, engagement in physical education, Academic self-concept, achievement goal orientation, Academic burnout, exercise psychology, a moderated chain mediation model
Received: 06 Apr 2025; Accepted: 15 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang and Jiang. 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:
Xiaoyu Wang, College of Physical Education, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, 116029, Liaoning Province, China
Yong Jiang, College of Physical Education, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, 116029, Liaoning Province, China
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