Do students with different motives for physical education respond differently to autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching?

Objectives: This study examined whether the effects of autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching in physical education depend on students' motivation. Design: A preliminary, cross-sectional study relied on questionnaires administered to teachers. The main study involved an experimental design with students. Methods: In the preliminary study, 95 teachers reported on their beliefs regarding the effectiveness of autonomy supportive and controlling teaching styles for students with different motivational profiles. In the main study, 320 students completed a questionnaire on motivation and were then randomly assigned to an experimental condition in which they watched video-based vignettes of either an autonomy-supportive or a controlling style. After the experimental induction, students completed questionnaires on need satisfaction, need frustration, engagement, and oppositional defiance. Results: Teachers tend to believe that autonomy support and control work best for students scoring high on, respectively, autonomous and controlled motivation. The main study, however, showed that the moderating role of student motivation in the effect of teaching style was limited. The few interactions Obtained suggested that even students with poor quality motivation report that they would benefit from an autonomy-supportive approach and suffer from a controlling approach. Students in the autonomy-supportive, relative to the controlling, condition reported more engagement and less oppositional defiance, effects that were mediated by need satisfaction and frustration. Conclusions: All students, independent of their motivational regulations when entering the experiment, reported that they would be more engaged and would show less oppositional defiance when they would interact with an autonomy-supportive instead of a controlling teacher during PE. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.