Transformational Teaching and Adolescent Self-Determined Motivation, Self-Efficacy, and Intentions to Engage in Leisure Time Physical Activity: A Randomised Controlled Pilot Trial

Abstract

Based on transformational leadership theory, we generate and test a teacher development intervention designed to modify physical education teachers’ transformational teaching behaviors, and their adolescent students’ selfdetermined motivation, self-efficacy, and intentions to be physically active. Using a randomised control group design (11 teachers, 286 students in the experimental group; 16 teachers, 395 students in the control group), the intervention involved a 1-day experiential workshop with a booster session 2 months later, and with post-test measurements at 2- and 4-months post-workshop. After controlling for baseline measures, adolescents in the intervention condition rated their teachers as displaying significantly higher levels of transformational teaching, and reported significantly higher levels of self-determined motivation, self-efficacy, and intentions to be physically active than those in the control group at the first post-test. Significant between-group differences in students’ reports of transformational teaching and their own self-determined motivation remained at the second post-test measurement.