ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
This article is part of the Research TopicEmotional Intelligence in Educational Psychology: Enhancing Learning and DevelopmentView all 34 articles
Stress Appraisal and Adolescent Fitness under PE Exam Reform: A Dual-Path SEM Analysis of Challenge and Hindrance Pathways
Provisionally accepted
- Department of Human Anatomy, School of Basic Medicine, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China
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Objective: Under China's ongoing physical education (PE) entrance exam reform, students' perceptions of exam-related stress may function as a "double-edged sword" for health. This study examined how junior high school students' appraisals of PE exam stress were linked to their post-reform physical fitness through challenge versus hindrance stressors and adaptive versus maladaptive coping strategies. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 1,064 ninth-grade students from a junior high school in Kunming, Yunnan, China. Students completed standardized questionnaires assessing PE exam stress appraisal, challenge and hindrance stressors, and coping strategies. Physical fitness was indexed by the official composite score (0–100) from the reformed PE entrance examination. A dual-path structural equation model with chain mediation was estimated to test the hypothesized challenge-oriented and hindrance-oriented pathways, controlling for gender and residence background. Results: Positive exam stress appraisal was associated with higher challenge stressors and more frequent use of adaptive coping, which in turn predicted better physical fitness. Negative exam stress appraisal was associated with higher hindrance stressors and greater reliance on maladaptive coping, which in turn predicted poorer fitness. Both indirect paths were statistically significant, indicating that PE exam stress can mobilize health-promoting effort or undermine fitness depending on how demands are appraised and managed. Conclusion: PE exam stress is not inherently harmful; its impact on adolescents' physical fitness depends on whether it activates challenge-oriented or hindrance-oriented stress and coping processes. Interventions that foster positive exam appraisals, clarify expectations, and strengthen students' adaptive coping skills may help transform policy-driven exam pressure into a structured opportunity for building lifelong physical literacy and resilient health behaviors.
Keywords: Adolescent physical fitness, Challenge stressors, coping strategies, Hindrance stressors, Physical Education Entrance Exam Reform, Stress appraisal
Received: 15 Jun 2025; Accepted: 15 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 王. 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: 德贵 王
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