What students pursue matters: longitudinal associations between goal contents and life skills in university physical education.

Introduction: Research on goal contents has largely focused on why students engage in physical activity, with less attention to what they pursue through it. This study examined the prospective and possible reverse-direction associations between intrinsic and extrinsic goal contents and five life skills among students in university physical education. Methods: A two-wave cross-lagged panel design was employed over one academic semester with 347 students nested within 26 university physical education class sections. Participants completed self-report measures of intrinsic and extrinsic goals and five domains of life skills (teamwork, goal setting, time management, social skills, and leadership) at the beginning (T1) and end (T2) of the semester. Results: After accounting for prior levels of the study variables and sex, T1 intrinsic goals showed prospective associations with T2 time management and leadership in the unadjusted results, but only the association with time management remained statistically significant after the Holm correction. T1 extrinsic goals were not significantly associated with any of the five life skills at T2. Regarding the reverse-direction associations, T1 leadership was negatively associated with T2 extrinsic goals in the unadjusted results, although this association did not remain statistically significant after the Holm correction. None of the remaining reverse-direction paths were statistically significant. Discussion: These findings suggest that intrinsic goals may be prospectively associated with time management and, more tentatively, leadership, rather than uniformly with all five life skills. They also provide initial insight into the prospective direction of the associations between goal contents and life skills in university physical education.