Indicators of psychological well-being perceived by physical education students

Abstract

Adolescence is a critical step in learning healthy and wellness behaviours, which include physical activity; furthermore the habits developed during this phase may continue into adulthood. If psychological well-being is considered one of the factors that facilitates adhesion to exercise and health and allows physical exercise to be practiced, adequately perceiving indicators of well-being should be teachers’ main objective in teaching physical education at school. We aimed to establish the correspondence between teaching styles in physical education teachers for organising classes and the indices of psychological well-being perceived by students in learning contexts. We conducted a correlational descriptive study between teaching styles indicators (n = 15) using the Styles Questionnaire Educational Profiles (PEE) (Magaz and Garcia, 1998) and the perceptions of subjective well-being by students (n = 150) between 12 and 16 years of age using the Spanish version of Ryff's Scale of Psychological Well-Being (Diaz et al., 2005), corresponding to compulsory secondary education. The data analysis suggests a positive correspondence between the indices of psychological well-being perceived by the students with the way in which their physical education teachers taught the subject. The results showed the importance of the pedagogical transmission of physical activity as a model that encourages adolescents’ psychological well-being as a basis for healthy behaviours in adulthood.