Validation and adaptation to the physical education context of the psychological control teaching scale, and its effect on the frustration of basic psychological needs

Abstract

The role that teachers adopt during PE classes is fundamental to ensure that students are actively involved. The aim of the study was to validate and adapt the Psychological Control Teaching Scale (PCT) to the Spanish context of PE, in order to have a scale to measure teachers' psychological control over students and to analyze its relationship with the four frustrations of psychological needs. To answer the objective of the study, two independent samples belonging to several secondary schools were selected. To analyze the psychometric properties of the PCT, confirmatory factorial analysis, as well as invariance analysis by gender and reliability analysis were carried out. To analyze the relationship between teachers' control and frustration of the four psychological needs, a model of structural equations was built. The results supported the validity and reliability of the structure of the questionnaire, the model being invariant by gender. Teachers' psychological control acted as a predictor of the factors that trigger frustration of basic psychological needs, our outcomes being in line with the postulates of the theory of self-determination.