Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Transformational Teaching and Adolescent Physical Activity: Multilevel and Mediational Effects

  • Published:
International Journal of Behavioral Medicine Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

Regular physical activity is associated with a range of physical and psychological health benefits. In North America the majority of adolescents are insufficiently active.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the prospective relationship between adolescents' perceptions of transformational leadership displayed by their school physical education teachers and their own physical activity behaviors, both with respect to within-class physical activity (WCPA) and also leisure time physical activity (LTPA).

Method

The study used a prospective observational design. Using multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM), we examined the extent to which adolescents' affective attitudes mediated the effects of teachers' behaviors on adolescents' physical activity responses. Two thousand nine hundred and forty-eight adolescents (M age = 14.33, SD = 1.00, N female = 1,641, 55.7 %) from 133 Grade 8–10 classes in British Columbia (Canada) provided ratings of their physical education teachers' behaviors midway through the school year. Two months later, students completed measures of affective attitudes, WCPA, and LTPA.

Results

The results indicated that adolescents' perceptions of transformational teaching explained significant variance in both WCPA and LTPA, and these effects were fully mediated by adolescents' affective attitudes (total indirect effect: b = 0.581, p < 0.001).

Conclusion

The findings suggest that transformational leadership behaviors displayed by physical education teachers may be an important source of adolescent enjoyment of physical education as well as health-enhancing physical activity involvement within school and outside of school.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Data reported in the present study formed part of a larger program of research designed to examine the effects of transformational teaching in physical education contexts. Research on the reliability and validity of measures derived from the TTQ were previously published in Beauchamp et al. [17] and concerned data collected midway through the school year (Time 1). The data reported in this article represents longitudinal data, with respect to Time 1 measures of transformational teaching in relation to Time 2 (2 months later) measures of affective attitudes and physical activity behavior among adolescents.

  2. It should be noted that the sample size reported in this study was different to that reported in Beauchamp et al. [17] due to both the different approaches to dealing with missing data as well as the different methods of model estimation in the two studies. In the measurement development paper by Beauchamp et al. [17], missing data were dealt with through listwise deletion (prior to conducting the multilevel CFA, missing data were found to be Missing Completely at Random, MCAR, Little's chi square = ns). In light of recent advances in treating missing data [48, 49], missingness was modeled in the current study within the WLSMV estimation algorithm [39]. In addition, in the current study, sex was included as a covariate within the analyses, which meant that data were included in this study only if participants reported their sex (in the initial instrument development study by Beauchamp et al. [17], 24 participants did not report their sex).

References

  1. Janssen I, Leblanc AG. Systematic review of the health benefits of physical activity and fitness in school-aged children and youth. Int J Behav Nutr Phy Act. 2010;7:40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Singh A, Uijtdewilligen L, Twisk JW, van Mechelen W, Chinapaw MJ. Physical activity and performance at school: a systematic review of the literature including a methodological quality assessment. Arch Pediat Adol Med. 2012;166(1):49–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. World Health Organization. Global recommendations on physical activity for health. 2010. Available from: http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241599979_eng.pdf

  4. Colley RC, Garriguet D, Janssen I, Craig CL, Clarke J, Tremblay MS. Physical activity of Canadian children and youth: accelerometer results from the 2007 to 2009 Canadian Health Measures Survey. Health Rep. 2011;22(1):1–9.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Shanklin S, Brener ND, Kann L, Griffin-Blake S, Ussery-Hall A, Easton A, et al. Youth risk behavior surveillance: selected steps communities, United States, 2007. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2008. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/ss/ss5712.pdf

  6. Institute of Medicine. Accelerating progress in obesity prevention: solving the weight of the nation. Washington, DC: The National Academy Press: 2012.

  7. Morgan CF, Beighle A, Pangrazi RP. What are the contributory and compensatory relationships between physical education and physical activity in children? Res Q Exerc Sport. 2007;78(5):407–12.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Pate RR, Davis MG, Robinson TN, Stone EJ, McKenzie TL, Young JC. Promoting physical activity in children and youth: a leadership role for schools: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Metabolism (Physical Activity Committee) in collaboration with the Councils on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young and Cardiovascular Nursing. Circulation. 2006;114(11):1214–24.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Trudeau F, Shephard RJ. Is there a long-term health legacy of required physical education? Sports Med. 2008;38(4):265–70.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Bass BM. Does the transactional–transformational leadership paradigm transcend organizational and national boundaries? Am Psychol. 1997;52:130–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Bass BM. Transformational leadership: industry, military, and educational impact. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum; 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Bass BM, Riggio RE. Transformational leadership. 2nd ed. Mahwah: Erlbaum; 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Beauchamp MR, Morton KL. Transformational teaching and physical activity engagement among adolescents. Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2011;39(3):133–9.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Judge TA, Piccolo RF. Transformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analytic test of their relative validity. J Appl Psychol. 2004;89(5):755–68.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Wang G, Oh I, Courtright SH, Colbert AE. Transformational leadership and performance across criteria and levels: a meta-analytic review of 25 years of research. Group Organ Manag. 2011;36(2):223–70.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Slavich GM, Zimbardo PG. Transformational teaching: theoretical underpinnings, basic principles, and core methods. Educ Psychol Review. 2012;24(4):569–608.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Beauchamp MR, Barling J, Li Z, Morton KL, Keith SE, Zumbo BD. Development and psychometric properties of the transformational teaching questionnaire. J Health Psychol. 2010;15(8):1123–34.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Wilson AJ, Liu Y, Keith SE, Wilson AH, Kermer L, Zumbo BD, et al. Transformational teaching, and child psychological needs satisfaction, motivation and engagement in elementary school physical education. Sport Exer Perf Psychol. 2012;1(4):215–30.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Beauchamp MR, Barling J, Morton KL. Transformational teaching and adolescent self-determined motivation, self-efficacy, and intentions to engage in leisure time physically activity: a randomized controlled pilot trial. Appl Psychol Health Well Being. 2011;32(2):127–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. McAuley E, Blissmer B. Self-efficacy determinants and consequences of physical activity. Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2000;28(2):85–8.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Ng JYY, Ntoumanis N, Thøgersen-Ntoumani C, Deci EL, Ryan RM, Duda JL, et al. Self-determination theory applied to health contexts: a meta-analysis. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2012;7(4):325–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Rhodes RE, Macdonald HM, McKay HA. Predicting physical activity intention and behaviour among children in a longitudinal sample. Soc Sci Med. 2006;62(12):3146–56.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Ajzen I. The theory of planned behavior. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process. 1991;50:179–211.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Lawton R, Conner M, McEachan R. Desire or reason: predicting health behaviors from affective and cognitive attitudes. Health Psychol. 2009;28(1):56–65.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Nasuti G, Rhodes RE. Affective judgment and physical activity in youth: review and meta-analyses. Ann Beh Med. 2013;45(3):357–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Emmons RA, Diener E. A goal–affect analysis of everyday situational choices. J Res Pers. 1986;20:309–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Morton KL, Keith SE, Beauchamp MR. Transformational teaching and physical activity: a new paradigm for adolescent health promotion? J Health Psychol. 2010;15(2):248–57.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. Boreham C, Riddoch C. The physical activity, fitness and health of children. J Sports Sci. 2001;19(12):915–29.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Statistics Canada. Population by selected ethnic origins. 2001. Available from: www.statca.ca

  30. Zumbo BD, Gadermann AM, Zeiser C. Ordinal versions of coefficients alpha and theta for Likert rating scales. J Mod Appl Stat Methods 2007;6(1):21–9.

    Google Scholar 

  31. McAuley E, Duncan T, Tammen VV. Psychometric properties of the intrinsic motivation inventory in a competitive sport setting: a confirmatory factor analysis. Res Q Exercise Sport. 1989;60(1):48–58.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  32. Goudas M, Biddle S, Fox K. Achievement goal orientations and intrinsic motivation in physical fitness testing in children. Pediatr Exerc Sci. 1994;6:159–67.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Vlachopoulos S, Biddle S. Achievement goal orientations and intrinsic motivation in a track and field event in school physical education. Eur Phys Educ Rev. 1996;2:158–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Kowalski KC, Crocker PRE, Kowalski NP. Convergent validity of the physical activity questionnaire for adolescents. Pediatr Exerc Sci. 1997;9:342–52.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Biddle SJ, Gorely T, Pearson N, Bull FC. An assessment of self-reported physical activity instruments in young people for population surveillance: project ALPHA. Int J Behav Nutr Phy. 2011;8(1).

  36. Janz KF, Lutuchy EM, Wenthe P, Levy SM. Measuring activity in children and adolescents using self-report: PAQ-C and PAQ-A. Med Sci Sport Exer. 2008;40(4):767–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Barling J, Christie A, Hoption C. Leadership. In: Zedeck S, editor. Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology. Washington, DC: APA; 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Boswell WR, Boudreau JW, Tichy J. The relationship between employee job change and job satisfaction: the honeymoon-hangover effect. J Appl Psychol. 2005;90(5):882–92.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  39. Asparouhov T, Muthén B. Weighted least squares estimation with missing data (technical report). 2010. Available from: http://www.statmodel.com/download/GstrucMissingRevision.pdf

  40. Preacher KJ, Zyphur MJ, Zhang Z. A general multilevel SEM framework for assessing multilevel mediation. Psychol Methods. 2010;15(3):209–33.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  41. Muthén LK, Muthén BO. Mplus user's guide. Sixth Edition ed. Los Angeles: Muthén & Muthén; 1998–2011.

  42. Brown RL. Assessing specific mediational effects in complex theoretical models. Struct Equ Model. 1997;4(2):142–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Raudenbush SW, Sampson R. Assessing direct and indirect effects in multilevel designs with latent variables. Sociol Method Res. 1999;28:123–53.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Baron RM, Kenny DA. The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1986;51(6):1173–82.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  45. Hayes AF. Beyond Barron and Kenny: statistical mediation analysis in the new millennium. Commun Monogr. 2009;76(4):408–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Podsakoff PM, MacKenzie SB, Podsakoff NP. Sources of method bias in social science research and recommendations on how to control it. Ann Rev Psychol. 2012;63:539–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Avolio BJ, Reichard RJ, Hannah ST, Walumbwa FO, Chan A. A meta-analytic review of leadership impact research: experimental and quasi-experimental studies. Leadership Quart. 2009;20:764–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Enders CK. Applied missing data analysis. New York: Guilford; 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Graham J. Missing data analysis: making it work in the real world. Ann Rev Psychol. 2009;60:549–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a career investigator award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research as well as an operating grant from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded to Mark Beauchamp.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Kinesiology, The University of British Columbia, 122-6081 University Boulevard, Vancouver, V6T 1Z1, Canada

    M. R. Beauchamp, A. H. Wilson, A. J. Wilson & B. D. Sylvester

  2. Faculty of Education, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Y. Liu & B. D. Zumbo

  3. Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    K. L. Morton

  4. Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Canada

    L. J. Martin

  5. School of Business, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada

    J. Barling

Authors
  1. M. R. Beauchamp
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Y. Liu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. K. L. Morton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. L. J. Martin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. A. H. Wilson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. A. J. Wilson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. B. D. Sylvester
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. B. D. Zumbo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. J. Barling
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. R. Beauchamp.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Beauchamp, M.R., Liu, Y., Morton, K.L. et al. Transformational Teaching and Adolescent Physical Activity: Multilevel and Mediational Effects. Int.J. Behav. Med. 21, 537–546 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-013-9321-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-013-9321-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation