The relationship between physical activity and career decision-making self-efficacy in Chinese college students: the mediating roles of self-control and social anxiety.
{"title":"The relationship between physical activity and career decision-making self-efficacy in Chinese college students: the mediating roles of self-control and social anxiety.","authors":"Yuan Fang, Tingting Xu, Maosheng Ye, Changquan Li","doi":"10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1541211","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objectives: </strong>Enhancing career decision-making self-efficacy is an effective approach to improving university graduates' employment quality and speed. This study aims to explore the relationships among physical activity, career decision-making self-efficacy, self-control, and social anxiety to provide new perspectives and directions for enhancing university students' career decision-making self-efficacy.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Within the framework of this research endeavor, a cohort of 1,955 university students (<i>N</i> = 1,955) from 14 universities distributed throughout China was surveyed. The initial data was entered and stored by means of Microsoft Excel. Subsequently, SPSS version 26.0 was employed to execute a comprehensive set of statistical analyses on the data, including descriptive statistics, a normality test, a reliability test, an exploratory factor analysis (aimed at addressing common method bias), a correlation test, and a regression analysis. In the present study, a structural equation model was formulated via the utilization of AMOS 24.0 software, and the Bootstrap approach was implemented. A total of 5,000 samples were randomly drawn for the purpose of validating the research hypotheses, with the determination being based on whether the 95% confidence interval encompassed the value of 0.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>(1) Physical activity was found to positively predict career decision-making self-efficacy, as evidenced by (Estimate = 0.590, <i>p</i> < 0.001). (2) Self-control was demonstrated to play a mediating role in the connection between physical activity and career decision-making self-efficacy, with the effect indicated by (Estimate = 0.075, 95%CI(0.042, 0.113)]. (3) Social anxiety was likewise shown to assume a mediating role within the relationship between physical activity and career decision-making self-efficacy, as manifested by [Estimate = 0.009, 95%CI(0.002, 0.020)]. (4) A chain mediating effect was observed between physical activity and career decision-making self-efficacy for the combination of self-control and social anxiety, with [Estimate = 0.032, 95%CI(0.008, 0.057)].</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>These findings provided significant theoretical support for physical activity as an effective means to enhance university students' career decision-making self-efficacy and offered references for designing sports activity programs. Furthermore, this study offered new perspectives and directions for understanding and enhancing university students' career decision-making self-efficacy.</p>","PeriodicalId":12525,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Psychology","volume":"16 ","pages":"1541211"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11815557/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1541211","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Objectives: Enhancing career decision-making self-efficacy is an effective approach to improving university graduates' employment quality and speed. This study aims to explore the relationships among physical activity, career decision-making self-efficacy, self-control, and social anxiety to provide new perspectives and directions for enhancing university students' career decision-making self-efficacy.
Methods: Within the framework of this research endeavor, a cohort of 1,955 university students (N = 1,955) from 14 universities distributed throughout China was surveyed. The initial data was entered and stored by means of Microsoft Excel. Subsequently, SPSS version 26.0 was employed to execute a comprehensive set of statistical analyses on the data, including descriptive statistics, a normality test, a reliability test, an exploratory factor analysis (aimed at addressing common method bias), a correlation test, and a regression analysis. In the present study, a structural equation model was formulated via the utilization of AMOS 24.0 software, and the Bootstrap approach was implemented. A total of 5,000 samples were randomly drawn for the purpose of validating the research hypotheses, with the determination being based on whether the 95% confidence interval encompassed the value of 0.
Results: (1) Physical activity was found to positively predict career decision-making self-efficacy, as evidenced by (Estimate = 0.590, p < 0.001). (2) Self-control was demonstrated to play a mediating role in the connection between physical activity and career decision-making self-efficacy, with the effect indicated by (Estimate = 0.075, 95%CI(0.042, 0.113)]. (3) Social anxiety was likewise shown to assume a mediating role within the relationship between physical activity and career decision-making self-efficacy, as manifested by [Estimate = 0.009, 95%CI(0.002, 0.020)]. (4) A chain mediating effect was observed between physical activity and career decision-making self-efficacy for the combination of self-control and social anxiety, with [Estimate = 0.032, 95%CI(0.008, 0.057)].
Conclusion: These findings provided significant theoretical support for physical activity as an effective means to enhance university students' career decision-making self-efficacy and offered references for designing sports activity programs. Furthermore, this study offered new perspectives and directions for understanding and enhancing university students' career decision-making self-efficacy.
期刊介绍:
Frontiers in Psychology is the largest journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the psychological sciences, from clinical research to cognitive science, from perception to consciousness, from imaging studies to human factors, and from animal cognition to social psychology. Field Chief Editor Axel Cleeremans at the Free University of Brussels is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians and the public worldwide. The journal publishes the best research across the entire field of psychology. Today, psychological science is becoming increasingly important at all levels of society, from the treatment of clinical disorders to our basic understanding of how the mind works. It is highly interdisciplinary, borrowing questions from philosophy, methods from neuroscience and insights from clinical practice - all in the goal of furthering our grasp of human nature and society, as well as our ability to develop new intervention methods.