TARGETing secondary school students’ motivation towards physical education: The role of student-perceived mastery climate teaching strategies

autonomous motivation a significant regression equation was found F(5, 3144) = 224.605, p < .001), with a R2 of .26. Higher levels of perceived mastery teaching strategies positively influ- enced students’ autonomous motivation (B = .776, p < .001). For controlled motivation a sig- nificant regression equation was found (F(5, 3144) = 2.658, p = .021), with a R2 of .004, however the impact of the perceived mastery teaching strategies on controlled motivation was negligible (B = .070, p = .001). Regarding amotivation a significant regression equation was found F(5, 3144) = 80.559, p < .001), with a R2 of .11. Higher levels of perceived mastery teach- ing strategies decrease students’ amotivation (B = -.526, p < .001). With respect to the influence of individual TARGET structures on autonomous motivation (see Table 2) we found that the overall model was significant F(9, 3140) = 98.055, p < .001, Table 1. Means, standard deviations, Cronbach’s alpha, and correlations of all study variables. Variable M SD Scale α 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 1. Autonomous motivation 3.56 .98 1–5 .87 - 2. Controlled motivation 2.09 .78 1–5 .66 .03 - 3. Amotivation 2.15 1.04 1–5 .85 -.66� .26� - 4. Task 3.56 .70 1–5 .79 .50� .01 -.35� - 5. Authority 3.00 .85 1–5 .79 .38� .14� -.17� .54� - 6. Recognition 3.66 .79 1–5 .85 .43� .00 -.31� .66� .55� - 7. Grouping 3.37 .80 1–5 .80 .38� .06� -.24� .57� .58� .64� - 8. Evaluation 3.44 .79 1–5 .82 .44� .02 -.30� .61� .56� .69� .63�

� Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274964.t001 Table 2. Summary of hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting autonomous motivation. Variables B SE β R2 ΔR2 Step 1 .00 Gender (boys = 1, girls = 2) .02 .04 .01 Age .01 .01 .02 Educational Type 1 ref. ref. ref. Educational Type 2 .09 .04 .04� Educational Type 3 .03 .04 .02 Step 2 .29 .29 Gender (boys = 1, girls = 2) .02 .03 .01 Age .00 .01 .00 Educational Type 1 ref. ref. ref. Educational Type 2 .08 .04 .04� Educational Type 3 .00 .04 .00 Task .45 .03 .32�� Authority .09 .02 .08�� Recognition .09 .03 .07�� Grouping .02 .03 .02 Evaluation .18 .03 .14�� Note. N = 3150; B = Unstandardised regression coefficient; SE = Standard error; β = Standardised regression coefficient; R2 = Amount of variance explained; Educational Type 1 = pre-vocational, Educational Type 2 = senior general, Educational Type 3 = university preparatory �p < .05. ��p < .01. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274964.t002 PLOS ONE Impact of perceived teaching strategies on student motivation in secondary physical education PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274964 September 22, 2022 7 / 14