Does the sports environment influence extracurricular physical activity in children and adolescents? Exploring the mediating roles of social support, friendship quality, intrinsic motivation, and gender differences

Background: Physical activity is essential for child health, yet the contribution of extracurricular exercise and potential gender differences in its psychosocial correlates remains unclear. This study examines how the sports environment relates to extracurricular physical activity through social support, intrinsic motivation, and friendship quality, and compares boys and girls on these key variables. Methods: A total of 648 children and adolescents aged 7–12 years were surveyed using validated instruments: the Sports Environment Rating Scale, the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale, the Intrinsic Motivation Scale, the Adolescent Friendship Quality Scale, and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Regression-based mediation analyses were conducted using the PROCESS macro (Model 4) to test the hypothesized indirect associations in the total sample (bootstrapping with 5000 resamples; 95%confidence intervals). Gender differences in key variables were also examined. Results: Significant gender differences were found in extracurricular physical activity, social support, and friendship quality (all p < 0.01). Boys engaged in more extracurricular physical activity, whereas girls reported higher levels of social support and friendship quality (p < 0.001). Perceptions of the sports environment and intrinsic motivation were broadly similar between boys and girls. In the full sample, perceptions of the sports environment were positively associated with extracurricular physical activity, with significant indirect associations observed via friendship quality (effect = 0.88, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.78 to 0.97) and intrinsic motivation (effect = 1.30, 95% CI: 1.21 to 1.39). Conclusions: The sports environment influences children’s extracurricular physical activity through social and motivational pathways. Intrinsic motivation emerged as the strongest mediator. These findings highlight the importance of fostering supportive sports environments and adopting gender-sensitive strategies that take into account different activity and psychosocial profiles in boys and girls when promoting youth physical activity.

Extracurricular physical exercise; Adolescents; Sports environment; Social support; Friendship quality; Intrinsic motivation; Gender difference

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