Blended learning dimensions and academic engagement among university student-athletes in physical education: the mediating role of motivation

Abstract

Student-athletes must reconcile competitive training with academic responsibilities, and blended learning has been proposed as a flexible response, although its benefits may depend on students' motivation rather than on the delivery format alone. This study examined the associations between three blended learning dimensions — course design, learning experience and face-to-face interaction — and academic engagement in physical education, with achievement motivation as a mediating variable. A cross-sectional correlational design was employed with 100 university student-athletes, using partial least squares structural equation modelling with 10,000 bootstrap subsamples. All three dimensions were positively associated with motivation (β = 0.358 to 0.396) and motivation with academic engagement (β = 0.631); the indirect associations were significant for all three, course design being related to engagement only indirectly while the other two retained direct associations, and the model explained 81.0% of the variance in engagement. These findings are consistent with motivation acting as a pathway linking blended learning provision to academic engagement, although the two constructs, while statistically separable, overlapped substantially (HTMT = 0.945; latent correlation 0.938, 95% CI [0.885, 0.972]) and the cross-sectional design means that the mediation findings should be read as exploratory associations rather than causal effects.