The moderating effects of explanatory style in physical education performance: a prospective study

Explanatory style (ES) reflects the way people usually explain disparate bad or good events involving the self. The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to test whether ES moderates the effect of perceived ability on students’ expectancies and subjective task value, and (b) to explore the mediating effects of success expectancies and subjective task value in the relationships between ES and students’ grades in physical education classes (GPEC). A one-year prospective study was conducted with 182 high school students in physical education classes. First, regression analyses corroborated that ES interacted with perceived ability to predict success expectancies and subjective task value. An optimistic ES reduced the effects of a low perceived ability on subjective task value, whereas a pessimistic ES increased its harmful effects. Moreover, the more optimistic ES, the higher success expectancies are. Second, structural equation modelling analysis showed that ES had only a distal effect on students’ GPEC and was mediated by more proximal variables such as success expectancies and subjective task value.