The relationship between teacher enthusiasm and class immersion in PE classes as perceived by elementary school students: The moderating effect of teacher likeability

This study aimed to empirically investigate the influence of teacher likeability on the relationship between teacher enthusiasm and immersion in physical education classes as perceived by elementary school students. For this purpose, three hundred fifty five 5th and 6th grade elementary school children in I city participated in this study. Data analysis involved three statistical methods such as exploratory factor analysis, verification of factor reliability, correlation analysis between variables, and hierarchical moderated regression analysis. The conclusions reached through research analysis are as follows. First, the likeability of the teacher perceived by the students had a partial effect on the relationship between the teacher's enthusiasm for physical education classes and class immersion. In particular, based on the results of analyzing class immersion by dividing it into self-centered and task-centered, in task-centered immersion it was confirmed that teacher likeability had an effect on students' enthusiasm for understanding and enthusiasm for class preparation. Second, it cannot be said that students' positive response to teacher likeability has a statistically complete moderating effect in the relationship between student enthusiasm for understanding and task-centered immersion. However, students' negative reactions to teacher likeability were found to have a statistically significant complete moderating effect in the negative(-) direction in the relationship between student enthusiasm for understanding and class immersion.