Profiles of Social Learning Preferences and Differences in Prosocial Behaviors Among Physical Education Students

Abstract

Physical Education (PE) lessons have long been recognized not only for promoting the development of students’ motor skills and behaviors, but also as a valuable context for fostering social and emotional learning. Despite this, limited research has explored students’ social learning preferences in PE and their associations with prosocial behaviors. This study aimed to identify distinct student profiles based on four social learning preferences in PE (i.e., competitive, cooperative, affiliative, and individualistic) and to examine how these profiles differ in prosocial behaviors, including empathy, respect, relatedness, and leadership. Validated questionnaires were administered to 299 Spanish adolescents (50% boys; Mage = 13.76). A two-step cluster analysis (Ward’s method + K-means) revealed four distinct profiles: (1) highly competitive-cooperative-affiliative preference, (2) moderately cooperative preference, (3) moderately competitive-individualistic preference, and (4) individualistic preference. A MANCOVA (with gender as a covariate) showed that profiles emphasizing cooperation and affiliation exhibited the highest levels of empathy, relatedness, and leadership, even when competitiveness was also present. In contrast, the individualistic profile scored the lowest across all prosocial dimensions. These findings highlight the potential of cooperative and affiliative activities in PE to promote adolescents’ prosocial development. PE teachers are encouraged to design tasks that enhance peer collaboration and belonging, while minimizing excessively individualistic approaches.