ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Sport Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1618503
This article is part of the Research TopicPsychological Factors in Physical Education and Sport - Volume VView all 35 articles
Promoting Effects of Campus Football Activities on the Enhancement of Adolescents' Psychological Qualities and the Underlying Mechanisms
Provisionally accepted
- Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
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Background:Psychological qualities issues among adolescents are increasingly prominent, and effective interventions are urgently needed.Campus Football Activities has shown potential in improving Psychological qualities, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Objectives:This study aimed to explore the impact of campus football activities on adolescents' psychological qualities, along with the underlying mechanisms and pathways involved, and further examines the effects of an 8-week campus football program on adolescents' psychological qualities. Methods: First, an 8-week campus football intervention was conducted on 68 Chinese adolescents aged 16 to 18 years [mean age 16.865 years (standard deviation 0.636)] to explore the impact of campus football on adolescents' psychological qualities. Then,A cross-sectional survey was carried out on 431 adolescents from Chinese high school. The mean age of study participants varied from 16 to 18 years [mean 16.865 (0.816)]. The Sport Behavior Scale, Sport Cognitive Level Psychological Assessment Scale, Trait Sport Confidence Scale, and Adolescent Willpower Quality Scale were used to construct a structural equation model. This model revealed the effects of campus football on promoting adolescents' sports behavior, sports cognitive levels, confidence in sports, and willpower qualities, as well as their internal relationships.Results:Significant differences in campus football behaviors, sports cognitive levels, sports selfconfidence, and willpower qualities existed among adolescents following campus football activities.Furthermore, the direct effect of campus football behaviors on willpower qualities was significant.The mediating and chain mediating effects of sports cognitive levels, sports self-confidence, and the combination of sports cognitive levels and sports self-confidence between campus football behaviors and willpower qualities were also significant.Campus football activities can enhance adolescents' psychological qualities across: sports behaviors, sports cognitive levels, sports self-confidence, and willpower qualities. The internal action pathway is that campus football behaviors directly influence willpower qualities, and also improve willpower qualities through the respective mediating effects and joint chain mediating effect of sports cognitive levels and sports self-confidence.
Keywords: Campus football behavior, Willpower qualities, Motor cognition, Sports confidence, chain mediation
Received: 26 Apr 2025; Accepted: 20 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zheng, Wang, Zhou and Zhang. 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:
Wanting Zheng, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, 200072, Shanghai Municipality, China
Bin Zhang, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, 200072, Shanghai Municipality, China
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