Psychological Mechanisms and Teaching Improvement of Students' Participation in Interdisciplinary Thematic Learning in Physical Education: A Conceptual Framework
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.57125/FS.2026.06.20.07Abstract
Interdisciplinary thematic learning within physical education represents a pedagogical shift designed to foster higher-order thinking and holistic student development. This conceptual study aims to examine the psychological mechanisms governing student participation in interdisciplinary physical education and to derive theoretically grounded strategies for teaching improvement. The study is methodologically positioned as a conceptual theory-synthesis paper and does not collect or analyse primary data. It instead integrates Self-Determination Theory, achievement-goal theory, and the tripartite model of classroom engagement to construct an analytic framework. Through this synthesis, the paper identifies four recurrent psychological dilemmas, namely motivational deficits and the erosion of autonomy, collaboration-induced anxiety and social retraction, feedback deficits and the failure of achievement validation, and relational vulnerability and the breakdown of peer trust, and it maps each to a targeted pedagogical countermeasure. The proposed framework comprises four interrelated strategies, namely autonomous scaffolding, psychologically safe collaborative environments, embedded formative feedback loops, and multi-tiered contextualised task design. The paper's contribution is conceptual rather than empirical, offering a coherent, theoretically integrated lens that links pedagogical design to learner psychology and provides a research agenda for subsequent empirical testing. These proposals are advanced as hypotheses for practice rather than as demonstrated effects.
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