Multiple mediating roles of exercise self-efficacy,  exercise value perceived, and subjective exercise experience between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-4987288/v1

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Multiple mediating roles of exercise self-efficacy, exercise value perceived, and subjective exercise experience between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4987288/v1

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Objective For many years, the physical health of Chinese college students has been unsatisfactory, which is mainly caused by insufficient adherence to physical exercise. This study explored the mechanism of exercise atmosphere on Chinese college students^’ exercise adherence, and analysed the multiple mediating effects of exercise self-efficacy, exercise value perceptions, subjective exercise experience, and exercise atmosphere, with a view to providing theoretical and practical bases for exercise atmosphere to promote college students’ exercise adherence.

Methods Using the Exercise Atmosphere Scale, Exercise Self-Efficacy Scale, Exercise Value Cognition Scale, Subjective Exercise Experience Scale, and Exercise Adherence Scale, 1,796 Chinese college students from general higher education institutions were surveyed, and the relevant data obtained were analysed using the correlation analysis method, the multiple regression analysis method, and the Bootstrap test method.

Results Exercise atmosphere had a significant positive predictive effect on exercise adherence (β = 0.411, t = 19.599, P < 0.01), which remained significant after putting in the mediator variables (exercise self-efficacy, subjective exercise experience, and exercise value perceptions) (β = 0.145, t = 8.097, P < 0.01); exercise atmosphere had a significant positive predictive effect on exercise self-efficacy, exercise value perceptions (β = 0.367, t = 17.081, P < 0.01; β = 0.395, t = 18.199, P < 0.01); exercise self-efficacy had a significant positive predictive effect on exercise adherence and subjective exercise experience (β = 0.331, t = 16.761, P < 0.01; β = 0.139, t = 5.485, P < 0.01);Subjective exercise experience was a significant positive predictor of exercise adherence (β = 0.198, t = 10.849, P < 0.01); exercise value perception was a significant positive predictor of subjective exercise experience and exercise adherence (β = 0.427, t = 17.023, P < 0.01; β = 0.262, t = 12.577, P < 0.01); and exercise atmosphere was not significant in predicting subjective exercise experience (β=-0.013, t=-0.538, p > 0.05)(β=-0.013, t=-0.538, P > 0.05) .Bootstrap test results showed that: (1) exercise atmosphere can positively and significantly predict college students’ exercise adherence, with an effect value of 0.092, accounting for 35.31%; (2) exercise atmosphere can influence college students’ exercise adherence through the mediation of exercise self-efficacy, with an effect value of 0.077, accounting for 29.49%; (3) exercise atmosphere can influence college students’ exercise adherence through the mediation of exercise value perception, with an effect value of 0.065, accounting for 25.21%;(4) Exercise atmosphere can influence college students^’ exercise adherence through the chain-mediated effects of exercise value perception and subjective exercise experience, with an effect value of 0.021, accounting for 8.13%; (5) Exercise atmosphere can also influence college students’ exercise adherence through the chain-mediated effects of exercise self-efficacy and subjective exercise experience, with an effect value of 0.006, accounting for 2.47%.

Conclusion (1)exercise atmosphere can directly and positively predict college students’ exercise adherence; (2) exercise atmosphere can positively predict college students’ exercise adherence through exercise self-efficacy and exercise value perceptions, respectively, and the mediating roles of exercise self-efficacy and exercise value perceptions are significant; (3) exercise atmosphere can positively predict college students’ exercise adherence through exercise self-efficacy and subjective exercise experience, and the chain mediating role of exercise self-efficacy and subjective exercise is significant; (4) exercise atmosphere can positively predict college students’ exercise adherence through exercise value perceptions, and the chain mediating role of exercise value perceptions and subjective exercise is significant. chain mediation was significant; (4) exercise atmosphere was able to positively predict college students' exercise adherence through exercise value perceptions and subjective exercise experiences, and the chain mediation of exercise value perceptions and subjective exercise experiences was significant.

Exercise self-efficacy

Exercise value perceptions

Subjective exercise experience

Exercise atmosphere

Exercise adherence

College students

A report of the World Health Organization pointed out that from 2020 to 2030, due to the lack of physical exercise, nearly 500 million people worldwide will suffer from heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other non-communicable diseases [1], and the promotion of physical health of young people is an important part of the strategy of fitness for all and a strong country in sports, and it has always been a hotspot and a focus of attention for the Chinese government, the society, and academia and so on. The country has taken a number of initiatives to promote the development of youth physical health, in recent years, the development of student physical health is still unsatisfactory, the main crux of the problem still lies in the insufficiency of adolescents to participate in physical activity on a continuous basis [2].Adhering to long-term regular physical exercise is a specific interpretation of the health concept of ‘lifelong sports’ and a prerequisite for obtaining ideal exercise results. The university period is the transition from adolescence to adulthood [3], the first major transition from adolescence to early adulthood, and the last stage of college students to society [4]. The physical health of college students not only concerns personal and family harmony, but also determines social development and the future of the country. The implementation of the ‘Healthy China 2030’ planning programme, the National Health and Fitness Programme and the National Physical Fitness Standard for Students has improved and up graded the physical fitness of college students at school.However, due to the influence of individual cognition and other internal factors, a considerable portion of college students who have experienced exercise stress events will produce negative exercise tendencies such as withdrawal and avoidance [5, 6], and even more than half of them gradually quit physical exercise after finishing their physical education studies due to the lack of exercise atmosphere and other external factors [7], which brings a great challenge to the construction of a strong sports country and a healthy China, so in-depth investigation into the mechanisms influencing college students' sustained participation in physical education is imminent. Therefore, an in-depth investigation into the influence mechanisms affecting college students' sustained participation in physical activity is imminent. The successful experience of existing studies tells us that simply exploring the direct influence of individual internal or external factors on exercise adherence may fall into the misunderstanding of voluntarism or environmental determinism.Therefore, from the perspective of the interaction between the internal psychology of individuals and the external environment, based on social learning theory, social cognitive theory, expected value theory, cognitive decision-making theory of exercise adherence, embodied cognitive theory, etc., the present study explored the influencing mechanism of college students' exercise adherence based on the multiple interactive effects of exercise self-efficacy, subjective exercise value, subjective exercise experience and exercise atmosphere, which can help to clarify many potential causative factors of exercise adherence. This study will help to clarify the potential causative factors of exercise adherence, which will not only help to scientifically guide college students to establish good exercise habits, but also help them to obtain long-term exercise benefits.

Social learning theory suggests that the process of human social learning is the result of the interaction of behaviour, cognition and environment [8]. Exercise adherence is the behavioural state or tendency of an individual to maintain long-term, regular physical exercise activities based on physical exercise participation [9]. In other words, exercise adherence is a state in which the exercise subject maintains exercise based on the cognitive basis of his or her own behaviour and under the interaction of external environment, atmosphere and other variables.Exercise atmosphere is the supportive atmosphere of the social and natural environments for individuals to participate in physical activities, which plays an important role in exercise behaviour [10, 11]. Research has shown that a good exercise atmosphere can help eliminate negative self-experience, increase positive experience, develop social psychology, and promote physical activity behaviour [12]; a good exercise atmosphere can provide a positive contextual field for adolescents' adherence to physical activity, which can help the subject to mobilize positive emotional responses, improve environmental adaptability, and then maintain exercise behaviour [13]; a good exercise atmosphere can also help individuals to decide whether to exercise or not to exercise. It can provide a decision-making basis for individuals to decide whether to exercise or not, to mobilise ruminative thinking based on the exercise behaviour and performance of peers around them, and to adhere to the physical activity behaviour under the demonstration and leadership of peers [14]. Accordingly, Hypothesis H1 was proposed that exercise atmosphere can directly influence college students' exercise adherence .

Psychologist Bandura originally proposed that self-efficacy refers to an individual's expectations about his or her ability to operate behaviours in a given situation [15], arguing that expectations mediate cognition and behaviour and are determinants of behaviour. In subsequent related research he made a more precise revision, arguing that self-efficacy refers to an individual's beliefs about his or her ability to successfully operate behaviours directed towards a desired outcome in a particular domain [16], At the beginning of the 19th century he proposed the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) that explains human psychological functioning, which suggests that there is a triadic reciprocal interaction between behaviour (B), person (P) and environment (E). This leads to the conclusion that self-efficacy, which is based on the extent to which the subject of action believes in the future accomplishment of a particular thing or task in a particular situation, environment, or atmosphere, is a factor closest to behavioural change [17] and is an extremely critical mediating variable that predicts behavioural change in an individual, and that it is extremely stable and consistent in its relationship with physically active behaviours [18].As an important cognitive motivational variable of exercise behaviour, the relationship between exercise self-efficacy and change in exercise behaviour has been extensively studied both at home and abroad, and the significant and stable predictive effect of exercise self-efficacy on exercise behaviour has been confirmed by a large number of studies (including different populations from adolescents to the elderly, and from healthy to sick) [19–22]. Exercise self-efficacy has been shown to be an important determinant of change in exercise behaviour, and adherence to physical activity is also better in those with high self-efficacy [23].According to exercise psychology, external stimuli triggered by a specific situation can trigger a series of feelings and experiences, and people always tend to assess future events and decide whether to perform or not to perform behaviours on the basis of existing experiences [24]. Accordingly, H2 is proposed: a good exercise atmosphere can improve exercise self-efficacy, forming a psychological decision-making antecedent variable has a facilitating and strengthening effect on college students' exercise adherence behaviours, in which exercise self-efficacy plays a mediating role between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence in this pathway.

Expectancy-Value Theory, as a cognitive theory, is one of the dominant theoretical frameworks for studying individual achievement motivation, and scholars such as Vroom (1966), Wigfield and Eccles (2000) have made a number of new extensions and refinements to the theory, which, compared with the earlier theories that emphasised the characteristics of psychological neediness, have taken environmental factors into account. Pointing out that an individual's perception of a task and choice of an action outcome depends not only on his or her own level of cognition, but also on the influences of culture, environment, behaviours, beliefs, and values [25, 26].It also emphasises the role of social cognition in regulating and controlling behaviour, and that individual behaviour can be influenced, regulated and predicted through the perception, anticipation and judgement of the environment by individual social cognitive factors[27], and the exercise value perceptions is the individual's understanding of the benefits of exercise to health, which is mainly dependent on the provision of exercise-related educational resources and the promotion of exercise knowledge (Wu etal.,2021) [28], and the interaction between the individual and the exercise environment (Jafetal.,2023) [29], the more appropriate the exercise environment, the more harmonious the exercise atmosphere, the more enthusiastic individuals are about the pursuit of success, and the easier it is for them to continue to participate in physical activity [30].Exercise atmosphere can influence college students’ perception of exercise value, and students with higher exercise value perception tend to be more active and positive in physical education classes, and they will have certain expectations of themselves based on the standards of their classmates’ and friends’ ability to complete the task, which affects their motivation and behavioural choices, and it has been concluded from the empirical studies that exercise value perception positively predicts adolescents’ participation in physical education and sports [31–33]. Accordingly, we propose H3: Exercise atmosphere affects exercise value perceptions, thus predicting college students' exercise adherence, and exercise value perceptions mediate the relationship between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence.

Adherence to exercise behaviour is often influenced by a number of irrational factors, among which Subjective Exercise Experience (SEE) is an important antecedent variable [34], which is an individual's feelings and impressions of past exercise emotions, and is a self-assessment of the exerciser’ s post-exercise experience of positive/negative emotional states and physiological exertion [35].The cognitive decision theory of exercise adherence suggests that natural environments and interpersonal atmospheres can motivate individuals to adhere to exercise on the basis of enriched exercise participation options and improved exercise opportunities [36], and that positive subjective experiences have a significant value-added contribution in this mechanism [37]. On the one hand, natural atmospheres such as venues and equipment predict exercise opportunities, conditions, and satisfaction, which benefit from enriching exercisers' pleasure experiences, feelings, positive emotions, and desire to participate, and serve as an informative memory for decision-making to exercise, making it possible for individuals to maintain regular, frequent, and self-directed exercise [38].On the other hand, the interpersonal atmosphere of friendship and support conveys a kind of emotional care for the subject, which can motivate individuals to display themselves and establish group identity [39], so that exercise adherence becomes a ‘label’ for the subject to ‘restrain’ his/her own behaviours and differentiate from others,and shapes exercise into a habit. Accordingly, we propose H4: subjective exercise experience mediates the relationship between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence, and a good exercise atmosphere can enhance college students' subjective exercise experience and positively predict exercise adherence.

Related studies have confirmed that a good exercise atmosphere can significantly and positively predict college students’ exercise self-efficacy, and that a good subjective exercise experience can enhance college students’ exercise adherence. There are few empirical studies on self-efficacy and subjective exercise experience at home and abroad. In reality, the degree of excellence that the same person performs in different atmospheres when completing the same task is sometimes completely different, indicating that although people know what they should do, their outward performance may be the same or different, which is the manifestation of self-efficacy and its mechanism of action. Self-efficacy affects the way people think and react emotionally. In the face of potentially dangerous situations such as misfortunes and disasters, self-efficacy determines the individual's psychosomatic processes such as stress, anxiety and depression [40].In the process of interaction with the external environment, people with low self-efficacy are more likely to think too much about their own shortcomings and deficiencies, and exaggerate the actual degree of difficulty, which will produce more worry, anxiety, tension and other psychological pressure and negative emotions, and can not effectively use their ability to achieve the goal; on the contrary, people with high self-efficacy tend to be full of emotion and self-confidence when performing certain behaviours or tasks, focusing their attention on the requirements and solutions of the tasks, and even in the face of difficult situations, they will work harder and be inspired with a strong will to overcome the difficulties, and the likelihood of their success is greater. The achievement or non-achievement of the goal will affect the performer's experience. Based on the above, Hypothesis H5: Exercise atmosphere can influence college students' exercise adherence through exercise self-efficacy and subjective exercise experience, and exercise self-efficacy and subjective exercise experience play a chain mediating role between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence.

At the end of the 20th century, the theory of embodied cognition proposed by Lakoff et al. argues that cognition is essentially a kind of processing and re-computing of bodily experience, and that the diverse contents of cognitive sources are formed through various types of bodily experiences such as sight, hearing, and touch, etc., and the important role of empirical bodily sensations in cognition is also obvious [41], who argues that the human brain is not the only source of cognitive processes, and that the body is also coupled with the brain under specific scenarios and atmospheres coupled with the brain, and while accomplishing behavioural goals, the body and its perceptions replace the need for complex internal mental representations, creating a mutual embedding between the brain, the body, and the environment. Therefore, the subjective exercise atmosphere is not only influenced by the environmental atmosphere, but also can provide the most intuitive body sensation to form the most realistic experience reserve and value judgement standard, thus influencing individual behavioural choices. Accordingly, H6 is proposed: exercise atmosphere will affect college students’ adherence to physical activity by influencing exercise value perception and subjective exercise experience, i.e.: exercise value perception and subjective exercise experience have a chain mediating role in the process of exercise atmosphere predicting college students’ exercise adherence. The hypothesised model of this study is shown in Fig. 1.

Sample and data collection

Seven general higher education institutions in Donghu District, Qingshan Lake District, Honggutan District, Gaoxin District and Jingkai District of Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, China, were selected, and a survey of freshmen and sophomore students of the seven colleges and universities was carried out using the convenience sampling method from 6 to 17 May 2024 in the physical education class, with the assistance of the teachers of the class in distributing the paper questionnaires to be filled out, and retrieved instantly after filling out the questionnaires. A total of 2100 questionnaires were distributed, 1968 were recovered, for: (1) the questionnaire omitted more than 20% of the questions; (2) a single questionnaire to fill in the answer appears to be the same proportion of the number more than 70%; (3) each dimension between the calculation of the Z-value, standardised value of more than ± 3 scale, to be eliminated, in the end, 1,796 questionnaires were eligible, the effective recovery rate is: 91.26%. Among them, there were 801 male students (44.60%) and 995 female students (55.40%); 971 first-year students (54.06%) and 825 second-year students (45.94%), the details of which are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Distribution of subjects

		Quorum	Proportions
Gender	Male	801	44.60%
Gender	Female	995	55.40%
Age	17 and under	13	0.72%
	18	321	17.87%
	19	740	41.20%
	20	601	33.46%
	21	53	2.95%
	22 and over	68	3.79%
Grade	First-year university student	971	54.06%
Grade	Second-year university student	825	45.94%
Professions	Science and engineering as Academic subjects	623	34.69%
	Literature, history and philosophy	546	30.40%
	Economics and Law	254	14.14%
	Agro-military medical category (e.g. farm products)	233	12.97%
	Art and physical education	140	7.80%
Residence	Countryside	1006	56.01%
Residence	City	790	43.99%
Annual household income	Less than￥30,000	231	12.86%
	￥30，000-￥80，000	560	31.18%
	￥90，000-￥140，000	590	32.85%
	￥150，000-￥200，000	266	14.81%
	￥200，000以上	149	8.30%

Measurement tools

Exercise Adherence Scale(EAS)

Revision of the Adolescent Outdoor Exercise Adherence Scale (EAS) by Weina Liu et al [42] (6 questions). A 5-point Likert scale was used, with ‘completely disagree = 1 point’ and ‘completely agree = 5 points’, and the total score was summed up to indicate the level of exercise adherence of the subjects. When revising the scale, core words such as ‘outdoor exercise’ and ‘sport’ were revised to ‘physical exercise’ (e.g., participating in exercise has become a habit for me), and a reverse question was designed. (It is okay for me to give up physical activity). The Cronbach's α of the Exercise Adherence Scale was 0.881, which is a good indicator of the reliability and cultural adaptability of the scale when applied to Chinese samples [42].

Exercise Atmosphere Scale (EAS)

The EAS is a revised version of the Youth Exercise Friendship Scale developed by Weina Liu et al [43], which is divided into five dimensions: interpersonal association, natural association, information acquisition, interpersonal hindrance and conditional hindrance, and consists of 17 questions. The higher the mean score, the better the physical exercise atmosphere for the students. The Cronbach's α of the scale in this study was 0.822, which is a good indicator of the reliability and cultural adaptability of the scale when applied to Chinese samples [43].

Exercise Self-efficacy Scale (ESES)

The Exercise Self-efficacy Scale (ESES) was developed using the exercise self-efficacy scale developed by Wu and Pender [44] and modified with the research of Wang Shen et al [45], e.g., ‘I will insist on exercising even if I feel tired.’ There are 12 items in total, all items are scored on a Likert's 3-point scale, ranging from 1 (I can't do it) to 3 (I'm sure I can do it), and the scores of each item in the scale are summed up, and the higher the total score, the higher the college students' sense of self-efficacy in exercise. The Cronbach's α of the scale was 0. 787, and the scale was applied to the Chinese sample study with good reliability indicators and cultural adaptability [45].

Exercise Value Cognition Scale (EVPS)

The Exercise Value Cognition Scale (EVPS) was developed using the Kirk (2019) exercise value cognition scale [46], which was modified by Lu et al [47] to include a total of 7 question items, and was scored on a 5-point Likert scale, with 1-5 ranging from ‘Disagree’ to ‘Agree’. The higher the total score, the higher the level of perceived value of exercise. In this study, the Cronbach's α of the scale was 0.813, which is a good indicator of the reliability and cultural adaptability of the scale when applied to Chinese samples [47].

Subjective Exercise Experiences Scale (SEES)

The positive well-being and psychological distress subscales of the Subjective Exercise Experiences Scale by Meauley [48] were used. Positive well-being and psychological distress (each containing 4 questions, a total of 8 questions) were used as indicators for assessing two opposite experiences, positive and negative, and following the previous experience [49], the sum of the scores of the psychological distress items, which were processed in reverse, and the scores of the positive well-being items was used as an indicator to quantify the subjective exercise experience. The Cronbach's α of the scale was 0. 801, and the scale was applied to the Chinese sample study with good reliability indicators and cultural adaptability [49].

Statistical analysis

Valid data were imported into SPSS 26.0 statistical software using Pearson correlation analysis, regression analysis and chained mediation analysis. Chained mediation analysis was tested using Boot Strap. When analyzing the indirect effects of variables using the Process (version 4.1) plug-in, the following settings were used: model 80 was used; X = exercise atmosphere, M1 = exercise self-efficacy, M2 = exercise value perception, M3 = subjective exercise experience, Y = exercise adherence; Boot Strap Samples = 5000.

Common methodological bias test

The data used in the study were all from paper-based questionnaire tests, which may have common method bias problems. Harman's one-way model was used to test the common method bias problem, and the results showed that 13 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1 were extracted from the exploratory factor analysis, and the variance explained by the first factor was 20.88%, which was lower than the critical value of 40% [50], indicating that the problem of common method bias was not serious.

Mean, standard deviation and correlation matrix for each variable

Table 2

Descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients of variables
	M ± SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
1	1.590 ± 0.491	1
2	19.310 ± 0.953	0.023	1
3	1.390 ± 0.501	0.094**	0.475**	1
4	1.950 ± 1.041	0.161**	-0.018	-0.128**	1
5	1.470 ± 0.499	-0.008	− .104**	-0.040	0.062**	1
6	2.690 ± 1.124	-0.034	− .094**	-0.081**	0.015	0.256**	1
7	52.523 ± 8.853	-0.175**	0.048*	0.030	0.005	0.035	0.031	1
8	19.122 ± 5.558	-0.267**	0.016	-0.029	0.004	-0.007	0.002	0.407**	1
9	23.838 ± 4.437	-0.174**	0.038	0.006	-0.017	-0.002	0.025	0.422**	0.528**	1
10	27.562 ± 6.217	− .0820**	0.037	0.025	-0.014	-0.025	0.017	0.210**	0.352**	0.486**	1
11	17.212 ± 5.553	-0.279**	0.006	-0.029	-0.009	0.031	0.035	0.448**	0.624**	0.608**	0.481**	1
Note: ** indicates p < 0.01, * indicates p < 0.05. 1-Sex,2 -Age,3-Grade,4-Profession,5-Residence,6-Income,7-Exercise atmosphere,8-Exercise self-efficacy,9- Exercise value perception,10- Subjective exercise experience,11 -Exercise adherence

Correlation analyses of the variables in this study showed (see Table 2) that exercise atmosphere was significantly and positively correlated with college students' exercise self-efficacy (r = 0.407), exercise value perception (r = 0.422), subjective exercise experience (r = 0.210), and exercise adherence (r = 0.448); exercise self-efficacy was significantly and positively correlated with exercise value perception (r = 0.528), subjective exercise experience (r = 0.352), and exercise adherence (r = 0.624); exercise value perceptions were significantly positively correlated with subjective exercise experience (r = 0.486) and exercise adherence (r = 0.608); and subjective exercise experience was significantly positively correlated with exercise adherence (r = 0.481). In addition, the correlation analysis showed that Gender, Grade and age were correlated with the relevant variables; therefore, in this study, college students' Gender, Grade and age, major, place of residence, and family income were used as control variables to exclude their effects on the results of the subsequent study.

Multiple mediating roles of exercise self-efficacy, perceived exercise value, and subjective exercise experience between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence

Table 3

Mediation model regression analysis
Implicit variable	Independent variable	R	R²	F	β	t	P
Exercise adherence		0.494	0.244	82.470
	Exercise atmosphere				0.411	19.599	0.000
	Gender				-0.208	-9.664	0.000
	Age				0.000	-0.009	0.993
	Grade				-0.010	-0.416	0.678
	Professions				0.006	0.291	0.771
	Residence				0.015	0.719	0.472
	Incomes				0.005	0.249	0.804
Exercise adherence		0.746	0.557	224.575
	Exercise atmosphere				0.145	8.097	0.000
	Exercising self-efficacy				0.331	16.761	0.000
	Exercise value perception				0.262	12.577	0.000
	Subjective exercise experience				0.198	10.849	0.000
	Gender				-0.095	-5.598	0.000
	Age				-0.008	-0.455	0.649
	Grade				-0.011	-0.587	0.557
	Professions				-0.006	-0.346	0.729
	Residence				0.028	1.704	0.089
	Incomes				0.007	0.423	0.672
Exercising self-efficacy
		0.456	0.208	66.935
	Exercise atmosphere				0.367	17.081	0.000
	Gender				-0.216	-9.819	0.000
	Age				-0.006	-0.254	0.799
	Grade				-0.004	-0.174	0.862
	Professions				0.037	1.720	0.086
	Residence				-0.012	-0.554	0.579
	Incomes				-0.021	-0.946	0.344
Exercise value perception
		0.435	0.189	59.651
	Exercise atmosphere				0.395	18.199	0.000
	Gender				-0.120	-5.388	0.000
	Age				0.027	1.108	0.268
	Grade				-0.006	-0.258	0.796
	Professions				0.001	0.043	0.966
	Residence				-0.009	-0.403	0.687
	Incomes				0.010	0.448	0.654
Subjective exercise experience		0.505	0.255	67.919
	Exercise atmosphere				-0.013	-0.538	0.591
	Exercising self-efficacy				0.139	5.485	0.000
	Exercise value perception				0.427	17.023	0.000
	Gender				0.030	1.372	0.170
	Age				0.004	0.180	0.858
	Grade				0.023	0.969	0.333
	Professions				-0.010	-0.454	0.650
	Residence				-0.026	-1.215	0.225
	Incomes				0.012	0.561	0.575

Table 4

Proportion of mediating effects of exercise self-efficacy, perceived exercise value, and subjective exercise experience
Impact pathways	Efficiency value	Boot standard error	BootCI lower limit	BootCI cap	Efficacy as a percentage of
Aggregate effect	0.259	0.013	0.233	0.285	100%
Direct effect	0.092	0.011	0.069	0.114	35.31%
Aggregate intermediary effect	0.168	0.011	0.148	0.189	64.69%
Path 1: EA-ESE-EA*	0.077	0.007	0.063	0.091	29.49%
Pathway 2: EA-EVP-EA*	0.065	0.007	0.052	0.080	25.21%
Pathway 3: EA-SEE-EA*	-0.002	0.003	-0.008	0.005	-0.62%
Pathway 4: EA-ESE-SEE-EA*	0.006	0.002	0.004	0.010	2.47%
Pathway 5: EA-EVP-SEE-EA*	0.021	0.003	0.016	0.027	8.13%

The multiple mediating effects of exercise self-efficacy, subjective exercise experience, and exercise value perception on the relationship between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence were examined using Model 80 in the SPSS with plug-in Process macro, controlling for Gender, Grade, age, major, and household income, and the related results are shown in Table 3.The positive predictive effect of exercise atmosphere on college students’ exercise adherence was significant (β = 0.411, t = 19.599, P < 0.01), and after putting in the mediator variables (exercise self-efficacy, subjective exercise experience, and exercise value perceptions), the positive predictive effect of exercise atmosphere on college students’ exercise adherence was still significant (β = 0.145, t = 8.097, P < 0.01); exercise atmosphere had a significant positive predictive effect on college students' exercise self-efficacy (β = 0.367, t = 17.081, P < 0.01) and exercise value perception (β = 0.395, t = 18.199, P < 0.01);exercise self-efficacy was a significant positive predictor of college students’ exercise adherence (β = 0.331, t = 16.761, P < 0.01), and subjective exercise experience (β = 0.139, t = 5.485, P < 0.01); subjective exercise experience was a significant positive predictor of college students’ exercise adherence (β = 0.198, t = 10.849, P < 0.01);exercise value perception had a significant positive predictive effect on college students’ subjective exercise experience (β = 0.427, t = 17.023, P < 0.01) and exercise adherence (β = 0.262, t = 12.577, P < 0.01); exercise atmosphere had a non-significant effect on predicting college students’ subjective exercise experience (β=-0.013, t=-0.538, P > 0.05). The multiple mediation model was constructed based on the above results as shown in Fig. 2.In addition, using Bootstrap to mediate the effect test, the results show in Table 4, in terms of direct effect, ‘exercise atmosphere - exercise adherence’ direct path of Bootstrap 95% confidence interval [0.069, 0.114], does not contain 0, indicating that the direct effect of exercise atmosphere on college students' exercise adherence is significant. The direct effect of exercise atmosphere on college students' exercise adherence is significant, with an effect value of 0.092 and a direct effect ratio of 35.31%. In terms of mediating effect, the Bootstrap 95% confidence interval of ‘exercise atmosphere-exercise self-efficacy-exercise adherence’ pathway is [0.063, 0.091] not including 0, indicating that the mediating effect of exercise self-efficacy between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence is significant, with the effect value of 0.077, and the percentage of mediating effect was 29.49%;The Bootstrap 95% confidence interval for the pathway ‘exercise atmosphere-exercise value perception-exercise adherence’ was [0.052, 0.080], not including 0, indicating that the mediating effect of exercise value perception between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence was significant, with the effect value of 0.065, and the proportion of mediating effect was 25.21%; the Bootstrap 95% confidence interval for the pathway ‘exercise atmosphere-subjective exercise experience-exercise adherence’ was [-0.008, 0.005], including 0, indicating that the mediating effect of subjective exercise experience between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence was not significant. The Bootstrap 95% confidence interval for the pathway ‘exercise atmosphere-exercise self-efficacy-subjective exercise experience-exercise adherence’ was [0.004, 0.010], which did not include 0, indicating that there was a significant chain mediating effect of exercise self-efficacy and subjective exercise experience between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence. The effect value was 0.006 and the effect share was 2.47%.The Bootstrap 95% confidence interval for the pathway ‘exercise atmosphere - exercise value perception - subjective exercise experience - exercise adherence’ was [0.016, 0.027], which did not include 0, indicating that the chain mediating effect of exercise value perception and subjective exercise experience between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence was significant, with an effect value of 0.021 and an effect ratio of 8.13%.

Aiming at the issue of the mechanism of exercise atmosphere affecting college students’ exercise adherence, this study constructed and validated a multiple mediator chain model of exercise atmosphere and college students’ exercise adherence by introducing three variables, namely exercise self-efficacy, exercise value perception, and subjective exercise experience. The results of the study showed that the total effect value of exercise atmosphere on exercise adherence was 0.259, the direct effect value was 0.090, and the total indirect effect value was 0.168. Among them, the mediating effect of subjective exercise experience between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence was insignificant, and the hypothesis H2 could not be verified. The other five path hypotheses were tested.

Relationship between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence

This study shows that there is a significant positive correlation between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence (r = 0.448), and exercise atmosphere positively and significantly predicts college students' exercise adherence, with an effect value of 0.411, which is a significant direct effect, verifying the previous viewpoints: the better the exercise atmosphere is, the more exercise adherence the college students have [51], and the atmosphere is the gradual development of a specific environment into an atmosphere or environment that is distinctive, and which can be perceived and recognised by the subject [52,53], This study suggests that the mechanism by which exercise atmosphere affects exercise adherence can be explained in the following three ways.Firstly, the natural atmosphere is the external demand and motivation for individual exercise practice, and is the basis for people's decision-making to consciously participate in exercise [54], when exercisers perceive that the number and layout of exercise venues, accessibility and accessibility meet expectations or satisfy needs, they will arouse interest, enthusiasm and desire, stimulate exercise behaviour, and easily promote the frequency of participation, etc [55–57]. Secondly, the interpersonal environment will determine the cognition, emotion, choice and expression of individual leisure exercise [58]. The interpersonal atmosphere, such as friendship and support, conveys a kind of emotional care for the subject, which can motivate the individual to show his/her self and establish group identity [59,60], so that he/she can fully release emotions and stimulate positive experiences in practice, which in turn promotes exercise behaviour [61–63]. Finally, Exercise Adherence Cognitive Decision Theory(EACDT)suggests that whether or not an individual adheres to exercise depends on his/her cognitive processes, including attitudes, beliefs, expectations, self-efficacy, and goal-setting, etc. Therefore, a good natural and interpersonal environment meets the psychological expectations and goal setting of college students, establishes good beliefs about exercise adherence, and peer support creates a ‘siphon effect’, which contributes to the achievement of college students' exercise adherence.

Mediating effect of exercise self-efficacy

This study showed that the mediating effect of college students’ exercise self-efficacy between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence was significant, and that exercise atmosphere could indirectly affect college students’ exercise adherence through exercise self-efficacy. This is consistent with the finding that ‘positive family, school, peer, and community factors will enhance the exercise atmosphere around individuals, which in turn will increase the level of individual exercise self-efficacy and facilitate the formation of habitual exercise behaviours’ [64]. The Ecological Model of Physical Activity (EMPA) suggests that people's exercise behaviour is influenced by the interaction of individual and environmental factors [65]. Social Cognitive Theory also states that human behaviour is a product of the interaction between individual and environmental factors and is modified through the interaction of self-efficacy, outcome expectations and self-regulatory behaviour [66].Self-efficacy is an acquired belief, which mainly relies on the following sources of efficacy information for cognitive processing: first, behavioural achievement, which refers to the individual's personal experience based on his or her previous mastery of behaviour, and the richer the success experience, the higher the sense of self-efficacy; second, substitution, which refers to watching other people's behavioural performance and results to judge their own possible performance and results; and third, verbal persuasion, which refers to the suggestions, advice, and explanations from other people. explanations from others, but also the intrinsic motivation from oneself, e.g., individuals also have higher self-efficacy when important people around them strongly believe that they can succeed[67] .

In summary, this study concluded that the mediating effect of exercise self-efficacy has the following main mechanisms: first, the fresh and beautiful exercise environment has a good driving force for college students’ exercise self-efficacy, which greatly mobilises college students’ motivation to participate in physical exercise; second, peer support, role model motivation and drive, which is conducive to the regulation of positive emotions and inspires college students to participate in adherence to physical exercise. Third, self-efficacy is an individual's belief in his or her own exercise ability, and individuals with high exercise self-efficacy have a strong psychological drive to exercise, enjoy a pleasant exercise experience, maintain a positive emotional state, and gain the tangible feeling of successfully acquiring exercise skills, thus enabling long-term adherence to physical exercise [68].

The mediating role of exercise value self-perception

The present study showed that exercise atmosphere indirectly affects college students’ exercise adherence through the mediating role of exercise value perception, i.e., the better the exercise atmosphere and the more positive the exercise value perception, the higher the college students’ exercise adherence, which is consistent with previous research findings, e.g., a cross-sectional study by Haines et al. (2016) demonstrated that the higher the level of family support, the more positively adolescents engage in exercise behaviours [69], and Wu M et al. (2021) that family environment has a positive impact on the development of individual exercise behaviour, and that maintaining good communication between family members and developing a healthy lifestyle can have a positive impact on children's exercise value perceptions and exercise behaviour [70]. In this study, the mechanism of the mediating effect of exercise value perception was considered to be explained in two ways. First, value perception is the starting point of human behavioural change, which guides people's actions and decisions, and the lack of a clear understanding of the value of exercise adherence in health, life, learning, and social interaction is an important reason why it is difficult to adhere to physical activity, thus losing the active adherence to engage in physical activity. Secondly, value cognition tends to be relative, developmental and changing, i.e., different values and standards of judgement are formed in different spatial, temporal, cultural, social and historical contexts. Therefore, not only do individual experience and educational factors affect college students’ exercise value cognition, but the exercise atmosphere also affects the formation of college students’ exercise value cognition, which in turn affects exercise adherence.

The mediating role of subjective exercise experience

The present study showed that the mediating effect of college students' subjective exercise experience between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence was not significant, and that exercise atmosphere did not indirectly affect exercise adherence through subjective exercise experience, which is different from the findings of Lv, H., Zhang, T., Li, B. et al. (2023) and others [71]. The main reason for this is that in exploring the mechanisms by which exercise atmosphere affects exercise adherence, this study introduced three variables, exercise self-efficacy, exercise value perception and subjective exercise, and the results showed that both exercise self-efficacy and exercise value perception were able to serve as mediator variables to predict exercise adherence among college students, thus fully mediating the predictive role of subjective exercise experience. In previous studies, exercise self-efficacy and exercise value perceptions as variables did not co-occur, or did not occur when subjective exercise experience was significant as a mediator effect of exercise atmosphere, and exercise adherence [72–74]. This also illustrates the critical role of the variables of exercise self-efficacy and exercise value perceptions in theoretical models of exercise behaviour, which work together to inform individuals' behavioural decisions and maintain their habit of engaging in long-term exercise. Therefore, enhancing exercise self-efficacy and exercise value perceptions is an effective strategy to enhance exercise motivation and promote physical activity adherence.

The results of previous studies have shown that there is a correlation between subjective exercise experience and exercise adherence, negative exercise experience will inhibit exercise intention, weaken the strength of motivation, constraints on the implementation of the plan to produce withdrawal tendency [75]; exercise is often psychological fatigue will reduce the intention to exercise and wavering commitment to exercise, the behaviour of adherence to have a negative impact [76]. Thus, it can be seen that the subjective exercise experience is a determinant of exercise behaviour, and the empirical data also show that people with positive exercise experience can correctly understand the value and significance of exercise, and are able to form frequent, stable and positive exercise behaviours; conversely, people with negative exercise experience are unable to understand the ontological benefits and social value of physical exercise, and will block the practice of physical exercise and find it difficult to form positive and regular exercise behaviours [77]. It can be seen that subjective exercise experience originates from college students' existing exercise perception and awareness, and will have a strong impact on future exercise.

Chain-mediated effects of exercise self-efficacy and subjective exercise experience

This study shows that the chain mediation effect of exercise self-efficacy and subjective exercise experience is significant, and the exercise atmosphere can indirectly affect college students' exercise adherence through exercise self-efficacy and subjective exercise experience. Exercise atmosphere is the supportive atmosphere of the natural and social environments for individuals to participate in sports activities, and it is an important factor of the external environment of exercise, which is mainly manifested as a kind of ambient environment for contemporary college students to show the sports culture, sports elements as well as physical perception and emotional communication through the carrier of interpersonal communication and exchange [78], and it plays an important regulating effect between the individual's psychological traits and physical exercise [79].As a typical indicator reflecting individual subjective initiative, self-efficacy runs through all stages of exercise (unintentional, intentional and action phases), and is closely related to individual effort and positive emotions in action, with the role of providing individuals with more stable and good emotional feelings and behavioural motivation [80]. From this, it can be concluded that the community, family, and school provide individuals with good physical activity environments, which help to enhance individuals' exercise self-efficacy [81], confirming the idea that college student populations gain exercise efficacy in an exercise atmosphere [82, 83].

Exercise psychology suggests that people tend to formulate behavioural plans, evaluate future events, and decide whether to perform behaviours or not on the basis of existing behavioural experiences [84], and that subjective exercise experiences predict exercise behaviours and are the basis for decision-making about performing exercise in the future [85], i.e., whether adolescents are able to exercise adherence largely depends on the existing exercise experiences [86,87], and studies have shown that a positive exercise experience helps to enhance exercise intention and make individuals more inclined to exercise adherence.Individuals with high self-efficacy are more likely to be actively involved in physical activity, are more likely to set challenging exercise goals, are more likely to maintain positive attitudes and find solutions to problems when faced with difficulties and challenges in exercise, tend to experience more positive emotions such as pride, satisfaction, and joy when exercising, increase a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, and experience of exercising, and can exercise adherence to completing established physical exercise activities. In conclusion, exercise self-efficacy can positively influence individuals‘ subjective exercise experience, and the two are the continuity link between exercise atmosphere and college students’ exercise adherence.

Chain-mediated effects of exercise value perceptions and subjective exercise experiences

The present study showed a significant chain-mediated effect of exercise value perception and subjective exercise experience. For a long time, scholars exploring the influence mechanism of exercise adherence have found that an individual's rational psychology would determine the consolidation and stability of behavioural habits [88]. Exercise value perception as an individual's rational psychological factor may play an important role in exercise adherence, however, the mediating mechanism in the relationship between exercise value identity and exercise adherence still needs to be continuously explored. Identifying the mediating mechanisms could both improve understanding of exercise adherence and develop effective interventions to facilitate the development of exercise habits. Subjective exercise experience, as a non-rational factor, is highly subjective, and individuals decide whether or not to participate in an upcoming exercise practice activity based on subjective directness alone, a decision-making process that is influenced by the subject's experience and experiential memory [89].Related studies have demonstrated that exercise identity positively predicts subjective experience [90] and that exercise identity is an important component of an individual's perceived exercise value profile, which is the same as the results obtained in this study. The mechanisms involved are: first, exercise value perceptions influence individuals' level of motivation towards exercise. Individuals who perceive exercise as having important value, such as positive effects on health, body size, or psychological state, are more likely to set clear exercise goals and invest effort accordingly; second, exercise value perceptions can influence individuals' ability to self-regulate during exercise. Individuals with high levels of perceived exercise value may be better able to monitor their behaviour, adjust exercise intensity, and maintain consistency.Efficient self-regulation contributes to improved exercise effectiveness, which in turn enhances the subjective exercise experience. Finally, exercise value perceptions influence emotional experiences during exercise. Individuals who perceive exercise as valuable are more likely to feel happy, proud, and satisfied during exercise. In summary, exercise atmosphere can indirectly influence college students' exercise adherence through exercise value perception and subjective exercise experience.

Limitations and prospects

Firstly, this study explored the multiple mediating roles of exercise self-efficacy, subjective exercise experience, and exercise value perception between exercise atmosphere and college students' exercise adherence, explored the relationship between the variables, and revealed the different paths and mechanisms by which exercise atmosphere influences exercise adherence, which provided empirical support for the theoretical research, however, this study was a cross-sectional study, and there is still a need to use longitudinal follow-up experimental interventions to examine in depth the causal (predictive) relationships between variables.Second, this study selected three variables: exercise self-efficacy, subjective exercise experience, and exercise value perception. Subsequent studies can introduce other variables to investigate the relevant mechanisms as a supplement to the exercise atmosphere affecting exercise adherence. Finally, this study only conducted a mechanism study on the influence of exercise atmosphere on exercise adherence in some general colleges and universities in Jiangxi Province, and future studies can be conducted in college students of different districts, economic conditions, types of schooling, and levels of colleges and universities, so that the results of the study will be more representative and universal.

Suggestions

Exercise atmosphere influences the subjective exercise experience through exercise self-efficacy and exercise value cognition thus indirectly affecting college students’ exercise adherence, which not only verifies the theoretical basis of Environment-Cognition-Emotion-Behaviour, but also reveals the need to subsequently pay more attention to the methods and strategies of exploring the enhancement of exercise atmosphere and psychological factors to promote college students’ adherence to physical education and sports. Physical education class is an important place for college students to learn sports skills, shape sports morality, and develop healthy behaviours, and it is the main position for creating a good exercise atmosphere, enhancing exercise self-efficacy, establishing correct exercise value cognition, and fostering lifelong physical education, so the following suggestions are put forward:

(1) Create a favourable exercise atmosphere. Give full play to the convergence effect of family, school, society, peers and other multi-party systems to form a venue and equipment environment, family, social, school and community support environment and interpersonal communication and interaction environment conducive to college students' sports participation;

(2) Improve students' exercise self-efficacy. Carry out diverse, interesting and personalised emerging sports projects to improve students’ interest in sports; at the same time, make efforts to improve the level of teaching skills of physical education teachers, because students’ successful mastery of skills is often self-perceived as progress in learning, and the experience of success or failure of behaviours is one of the core factors affecting the formation and development of self-efficacy, so in terms of teaching strategies, it is particularly important to allow students to have a successful experience of the new content of their studies ;

(3) Enhance the subjective exercise experience. In physical education, it is necessary to create a good exercise atmosphere, arrange the teaching content, set personalised teaching objectives, exercise load and evaluation methods to ensure that college students get a good subjective exercise experience, so that they are more willing to participate in the exercise situation and show positive and long-lasting behavioural patterns;

(4) Establishing correct exercise value cognition. As an antecedent variable of exercise adherence, exercise value cognition is influenced by the provision of exercise-related educational resources and the propagation of exercise knowledge, as well as the interaction between individuals and the exercise atmosphere, i.e., exercise value cognition is affected by the combined effects of exercise atmosphere, self-efficacy (cognition), and subjective experience (emotion). In other words, the formation of exercise value cognition is a systematic project, which is influenced and constrained by many factors, which suggests that in the teaching of college students' physical education, we should avoid the unidirectional pursuit of the improvement of physical fitness and the acquisition of sports skills, which results in the pursuit of the “tournament-ism” of examination education, and more importantly, we should be more human-oriented, and pursue the quality education of the comprehensive development of body and mind, so as to cultivate the correct exercise value cognition of the students.

In summary, exercise atmosphere can directly affect college students' exercise adherence, or indirectly through multiple mediating effects such as exercise self-efficacy and exercise value perception. The pathways and mechanisms through which exercise atmosphere affects exercise adherence were derived from this study, and the relevant pathways are described as follows:

(1) Exercise atmosphere can positively and significantly predict college students' exercise adherence, with a significant direct effect and an effect value of 0.092, accounting for 35.31%;

(2) Exercise atmosphere can influence college students' exercise adherence through the mediating role of exercise self-efficacy, with a significant mediating effect and an effect value of 0.077, accounting for 29.49%;

(3) Exercise atmosphere can influence college students' exercise adherence through the mediating role of exercise value perception, with a significant mediating effect and an effect value of 0.065, accounting for 25.21%;

(4) Exercise atmosphere can influence college students' exercise adherence through the chain-mediated effects of exercise value perception and subjective exercise experience, with a significant chain-mediated effect and an effect value of 0.021, accounting for 8.13%;

(5) Exercise atmosphere can also influence college students' exercise adherence through the chain-mediated effects of exercise self-efficacy and subjective exercise experience, with a significant chain-mediated effect and an effect value of 0.006, accounting for 2.47%.

(6) The mediating effect of subjective exercise experience between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence was not significant when both variables of exercise self-efficacy and exercise value perception were present at the same time, with an effect value of -0.002 and a proportion of -0.62%, and subjective exercise experience was fully mediated.

EA Exercise atmosphere

ESE Exercise self-efficacy

EVP Exercise value perception

EA* Exercise adherence

SEE Subjective exercise experience.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the participants for the cooperation and participation in this study.

Funding

This study was funded by the ‘Fourteenth Five-Year Plan’ of Jiangxi Provincial Education Science(23YB036).

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Ethics declarations

All methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations. The study protocol was approved by the ethics committee of Jiang Xi Normal University (IRB-JXNU-PEC-2022001). Before formal investigation and testing, the researchers received the informed consent of the subjects involved in this study.

Conflict of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Author information

College of physical Education , Jiang xi Normal University Nanchang 330022 , Jiang xi China

Peng Jia , Ting Zhang & Xinqi He

Contributions

Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Writing original draft, P.JIA;T.Zhang; Formal analysis, Supervision, X.Q.HE.All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xinqi He [email protected].

Consent to participants

Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.

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Multiple mediating roles of exercise self-efficacy, exercise value perceived, and subjective exercise experience between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence

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Abstract

Figures

Introduction

Methods

Results

Common methodological bias test

Mean, standard deviation and correlation matrix for each variable

Discussion

Relationship between exercise atmosphere and exercise adherence

Mediating effect of exercise self-efficacy

The mediating role of exercise value self-perception

The mediating role of subjective exercise experience

Chain-mediated effects of exercise self-efficacy and subjective exercise experience

Chain-mediated effects of exercise value perceptions and subjective exercise experiences

Limitations and prospects

Suggestions

Conclusions

Abbreviations

Declarations

References

Additional Declarations

Status:

Version 1