ArticleBMC public health2025
Assessing the role of physical activity in shaping students' academic motivation: the mediating role of mental health.
Article in BMC public health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Network Analysis of Physical Activity, Personality, Goal Orientation and Depressive Subdimensions in College Students: Behavioral-Personality-Motivation Profiles.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Sport Motivation and Mental Health Outcomes Among Padel Players in Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional PLS-SEM Study.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Physical fitness indicators and physical activity behind self-determined motivation in Emirati female college students.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Article
- Sports participation and physical health outcomes: the mediating roles of educational attainment and health-related behaviors.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundStudent motivation and their mental wellness are key determinants of academic success in higher education. Among diverse strategies to support these outcomes, engagement in physical activity emerges as a particularly effective approach for promoting students' psychological well-being and sustaining their motivation. To further examine a complex interplay among these variables, we investigated the influence of physical activity (PA) on students' academic motivation (AM) through their mental health (MH) in light of self-determination theory (SDT).
methodsImplementing a quasi-experimental research design, we recruited 450 students and engaged them in a daily running practice for four months to examine its impact on their MH and AM. We assessed AM using an adapted version of the academic motivation scale (AMS), MH using the mental health and well-being scale (MWBS), and PA using the adapted version of the physical activity questionnaire for adolescents (PAQ-A) at three time points: prior to, midway through, and following the intervention. We analyzed the data both descriptively (via mean and standard deviation) and inferentially, employing two-way repeated measures ANOVA and structural equation modeling as our statistical approaches.
resultsThe intervention substantially improved students' MH and AM, with extrinsic motivation (EM) consistently surpassing intrinsic motivation (IM) across all time intervals. The study also demonstrates a substantial influence of PA through MH on AM over time, with a greater mediating effect on EM (ꞵ= 0.17, p < 0.01) than IM (ꞵ= 0.12, p = 0.01). The findings suggest that students are more influenced by external motivators, such as grades and their career projections, than by the intrinsic enjoyment of learning.
conclusionsThe consistent dominance of EM underscores the need for educational strategies that balance external incentives with opportunities to foster IM, emphasizing autonomy, competence, and personal growth. Additionally, the positive impact of running practice through MH on both types of motivation suggests that incorporating psychological support into regular PA programs can enhance student academic engagement and psychological wellbeing. The findings further suggest ways to meet the intrinsic needs of students to cultivate their internal desire to learn.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.