Objective: This study explored the relationship between college students' physical activity motivation and exercise behavior and constructed a chain mediation model through the mediating roles of exercise climate and exercise self-efficacy.
Methods: By random sampling, 1,032 college students were investigated using the
Results: (1) There was a huge positive correlation between exercise motivation and exercise behavior ( = 0.240, < 0.01), and the immediate ways of linking exercise motivation to exercise behavior were critical ( = 0.068, = 0.040, < 0.01). (2) Exercise motivation could positively predict exercise climate ( = 0.373, = 0.061, < 0.01) and exercise self-efficacy ( = 0.174, = 0.039, < 0.01), and exercise climate could emphatically foresee exercise behavior ( = 0.302, = 0.051, < 0.01). Exercise self-efficacy could foresee exercise behavior decidedly ( = 0.190, = 0.048, < 0.01). (3) Exercise climate and exercise self-efficacy play a critical intervening role between exercise motivation and exercise behavior. The intercession impact is explicitly made out of aberrant impacts created in three ways: exercise motivation → exercise climate → exercise behavior (mediating effect value: 0.113); exercise motivation → exercise self-efficacy → exercise behavior (mediating effect value: 0.033); exercise motivation → exercise climate → exercise self-efficacy → exercise behavior (mediating effect value: 0.027).
Conclusion: (1) Exercise climate, exercise self-efficacy, and exercise behavior can all be significantly predicted by exercise motivation, suggesting that exercise motivation may help to enhance these variables. (2) In addition to having a direct impact on exercise behavior, exercise motivation can also have an indirect impact through the separate mediating effects of exercise climate and exercise self-efficacy as well as the chain mediating effect of exercise climate and exercise self-efficacy, which is crucial for encouraging college students to engage in physical activity.
