Research Information System
International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
The purpose of this study was to examine physical education (PE) teachers’ strategies for identifying and motivating inactive students in PE to increase physical activity, both before and after participation in a professional development programme. A qualitative methodology was used, and semi-structured interviews were conducted. The study’s theoretical framework, ontological relativism and epistemological constructionism, guided interpretation by participants’ subjective experiences and how meanings were co-created. The project involved interviews with 15 randomly selected PE teachers (10 male, 5 female) from France, Greece, and Turkey. Data from semi-structured interviews were analysed using Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis framework with an inductive–deductive coding approach performed independently by three researchers revealing four broad themes: (a) Strategies to identify/monitor students who do not participate in Physical Activity (PA), (b) Promoting student participation in out-of-school PA, (c) Implementing Goal Setting Theory (GST), (d) Promoting an autonomy-supportive or controlling climate in PE. The findings suggest that the project urged PE teachers to use monitoring and goal setting to identify students most in need of PA and to motivate them to participate in out-of-school PA. Despite the training, most PE teachers continued to use controlling behaviours and provided limited autonomy to students. However, some PE teachers reported that the IMPACT project challenged them to adopt an autonomous-supportive climate.