The Relationship and Prediction of University Sports Environment, Exercise Motivation, and Physical Exercise Behavior among Chinese University Students

Abstract

Physical exercise plays an important role in preventing diseases and promoting health. The university stage is a critical transition period from youth to adulthood, and it is also a critical period for forming good exercise behaviors and lifelong sports habits, which is of great significance to the future healthy life of university students. University students' exercise behavior is driven by multiple factors. The university sports environment is an important basis for promoting university students' exercise behavior. Exercise motivation is the psychological motivation that drives university students' exercise behavior.

This study explores the intrinsic relationship between the university sports environment, exercise motivation and exercise behavior, and provides theoretical reference and practical support for improving university students' exercise behavior.Therefore，the purposes of this study were five:To revise and validate the university sports environment questionnaire for Chinese university students;To determine the relationship between university sports environment and exercise motivation and exercise behavior as a whole and classified by gender and year level of study;To determine the relationship between exercise motivation and exercise behavior as a whole and classified by gender and year level of study;To create equations to predict physical exercise behavior for Chinese university students;To put forward strategies for promoting exercise behavior for Chinese university students.

The main conclusions are as follows:

The reliability and validity of the revised University Sports Environment Questionnaire reached acceptable standards(IOC≧0.8 and ICC≧0.8), providing strong evidence for the use of the University Sports Environment Questionnaire and providing theoretical and empirical basis for the future application of the scale among Chinese university students.

University students have gender-consistent characteristics in the university sports environment, and there was no significant difference (P>0.05); there were significant gender differences between male and female university students in the dimensions of health motivation, appearance motivation and identification motivation (P

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