A Study On College Students’ Psychological Need Satisfaction Towards Physical Exercise And Exercise Behavior

With the rapid development of science and technology as well as economy, sports has become a kind of social culture. Sports play an important role in college students’all-round development to ensure them to have both ability and political integrity, and to become a qualified socialist builders. Physical exercise has become an escort to cater for college students’psychological needs and for their health. In order to improve the quantity of college students’participating in sports, it is very important for us to understand what is the catalyst of the movement behavior. Under the framework of the self-determination theory, this study explores why sports are so attractive for college students, and how to promote them to take part in physical exercise scientifically ane reasonably. In this paper, college students’psychological need satisfaction towards physical exercise and the condition of the physical exercise behavior were investigated, and their relationship was discussed.With stratified sampling method, the author implemented a questionnaire test to some colleges and universities students in Gansu province. A total of 980 questionnaires was handed out, but only 950 ones were taken back, of which 885 effective ones were obtained. With the Chinese simplified version scale of psychological need satisfaction towards physical exercise and that of physical exercise behavior as a research tool, the author used the Excel 2007, SPSS 19.0 to analyze the statistical data through such mathematical analysis methods as the differences, correlation, regression. The results are as follows.1. The degree of college students’psychological need satisfaction towards physical exercise is above the average. College girls’satisfaction is higher than boys’; Students’satisfaction of science and Engineering is higher than that of students of Arts; Juniors’satisfaction is higher than the students’in the other grades. Through the multiple comparison, the author found that freshman and junior students have significant differences in exercise autonomy need, i.e. the former is lower than the latter. There are significant differences between junior students’need in physical exercise ability and that of freshman, and sophomores, i.e. a junior significantly higher. With regard to the need of physical exercise, a freshman is significantly different from a sophomore and a senior student, i.e. the former obviously higher. Students from urban and pastoral areas tend to be more consistent. Generally speaking, the satisfaction of exercise psychological need appears no significant difference between grades.2. From the perspective of the physical exercise behavior of college students, the amount of their participation in sports is moderate. Boys participate in the exercise with more intensity, and they take exercise longer and more times. The number of Science & engineering students’ participation in exercises is more than that of Arts, and the former’s exercise amount is also larger than the latter. University students in the different grades have significant differences in the movement intensity, time and frequency. The intensity of the senior students’participation in sports is the largest, significantly higher than freshman, sophomore and junior students. Junior students participate in the exercise longest, significantly longer than the freshman; Junior students participate in sports with the highest frequency and the most times, significantly more than the students of the other grades; Students from town and farm areas tend to be more consistent. In general, the exercise amount of a junior student is the biggest, significantly greater than a freshman and sophomore student.3. College students’ psychological need satisfaction towards physical exercise (ability need) can effectively predict the amount of exercise, but it can only explain 1.4% of the total variation of exercise amount. Therefore, there is no relationship of subordination and the basic quantity between them, but the correlation, mutual influence and promotion. The degree of college students’ psychological need satisfaction influences exercise behaviour, i.e. the satisfaction of psychological need can promote the amount of students exercise. According to the different individuals and participated project, exercise behavior can promote the psychological need satisfaction.