Motivational Climate Effect on the Development of Anxiety and Body Image in Education Students: A Structural Equation Model

Abstract

Motivation is one of the key factors affecting the achievement of a specific task. Therefore, the present research aims to identify and establish the existing relationships between sport motivation, the anxiety-related disorder, and the own body perception, divided into (a) developing an explanatory model of the motivational climate towards sport and its relationship with anxiety and physical self-concept and (b) contrasting the structural model through a multigroup analysis according to sex. A descriptive, nonexperimental (ex post facto), and cross-sectional study of young university students was carried out. The Perceived Motivational Climate Questionnaire for Sport (PMCSQ-2), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and the Self-Concept Form 5 (AF-5) were used for data collection. The data reveal that males show higher scores in all the variables that make up the ego climate and in the physical self-concept, while females show higher scores in the variables that make up the task climate and higher levels of anxiety.