Under the background of changes in the era of vocational education, exploring the relationships among motivational climate, motivation, and sport commitment among vocational high school students—who are important human resources for industrial struc...
Under the background of changes in the era of vocational education, exploring the relationships among motivational climate, motivation, and sport commitment among vocational high school students—who are important human resources for industrial structure transformation and upgrading—has important significance for improving physical literacy, cultivating lifelong physical education awareness, and enhancing future occupational adaptability. This study selected 386 vocational high school students from Lianyungang City in Jiangsu Province as the research subjects, and questionnaire data were collected using a convenience sampling method. The questionnaire used in this study consisted of a total of 52 items, including 3 items on demographic characteristics, 21 items on motivational climate, 16 items on sport motivation, and 12 items on sport commitment. To measure students’ self-determined motivation, the Self-Determination Index(SDI) was utilized. To test the research hypotheses, SPSS 30.0 software was used to conduct descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, independent-samples t-tests, one-way analysis of variance, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis, and the following conclusions were obtained.
First, gender showed partially statistically significant differences in motivational climate, self-determination index, and sport commitment. Among them, male students scored significantly higher than female students in mastery motivational climate and the self-determination index. In contrast, differences in performance climate and sport commitment were not statistically significant.
Second, grade level showed partially statistically significant differences in motivational climate, self-determination index, and sport commitment. Specifically, third-grade students scored significantly higher than first-grade students in mastery climate, self-determination index, and behavioral commitment.
Third, there were partially significant correlations among motivational climate, self-determined motivation, and sport commitment among vocational high school students.
Fourth, motivational climate had a significant effect on self-determined motivation. Specifically, mastery climate had a significant positive effect on the self-determination index, whereas performance climate had a significant negative effect.
Fifth, motivational climate had a significant effect on sport commitment. Among its dimensions, mastery climate had significant positive(+) effects on both cognitive commitment and behavioral commitment. However, performance climate did not have a significant effect on either cognitive commitment or behavioral commitment.
Based on the above conclusions, several suggestions are proposed for future research.
First, future studies should expand the sample scope to include vocational high schools from different regions. By obtaining data that are not limited to a specific region or school type, the reliability and validity of the research findings can be improved. In addition, considering diverse educational environments and student characteristics may increase the possibility of generalizing the results.
Second, future research should move beyond single-time-point cross-sectional studies and apply longitudinal or mixed research designs. Through such research designs, changes and interactions over time among motivation, individual motivational climate, and sport commitment can be analyzed in greater detail. In addition to psychometric tools, qualitative methods such as observation and interviews can be combined to further examine the mechanisms among motivation-related variables.
Third, future studies should incorporate various moderating and mediating variables into the research model, such as students’ basic physical education level, individual characteristics, teachers’ instructional styles, and peer motivational climate. By systematically integrating and analyzing these variables, the relationships between motivation and sport commitment can be explained from a multidimensional perspective, and a more comprehensive and empirical motivational influence model can be constructed. This may contribute to the specification of motivational strategies in physical education settings and support the development of personalized educational programs that reflect individual learner characteristics.