A Causal Relationship Model Affecting the Characteristics of Physical Education Students in the 21st Century

Abstract

This research aimed to develop a causal relationship model of factors affecting 21st century characteristics of physical education student teachers and to examine the direct and indirect effects of factors influencing these characteristics. The sample consisted of 586 fifth-year Bachelor of Education students majoring in Physical Education from the Faculty of Education at the National Sports University of Thailand across three campuses: Chaiyaphum, Chonburi, and Sukhothai. The research instrument was a 105-item questionnaire on factors affecting 21st century physical education teacher characteristics. Data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis to examine the model fit and causal relationships. The research findings revealed that the hypothesized model demonstrated good fit with the empirical data. The causal variables—curriculum acceptance (ACCEP), student background (BACK), instructor characteristics (CHARTE), attitudes toward the teaching profession (ATTI), and self-development (DEVEL)—all significantly influenced 21st century characteristics of physical education student teachers at the .01 level of statistical significance. The total effect sizes were: curriculum acceptance (ACCEP) = .89, student background (BACK) = .89, instructor characteristics (CHARTE) = .70, attitudes toward the teaching profession (ATTI) = .99, and self-development (DEVEL) = .71, respectively. The coefficient of determination (R²) was 0.67, indicating that the causal variables explained 67.00% of the variance in 21st century characteristics of physical education student teachers.