Dynamic associations among exercise self-efficacy, extracurricular exercise involvement, and perceived physical...

University students often experience difficulties maintaining regular extracurricular exercise, yet less is known about how exercise-related confidence, involvement, and perceived fitness unfold within individuals over time. This three-wave longitudinal study examined the dynamic associations among Exercise Self-Efficacy (ESE), Extracurricular Exercise Involvement (EEI), and Perceived Physical Fitness (PPF) in Chinese undergraduates using a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM).

Undergraduate students aged 18 years or older from eight universities in Sichuan Province, China, participated in offline surveys at three waves with approximately eight-week intervals. The baseline (T1) analytic sample included 1,673 students; 1,543 provided valid follow-up data at T2, and 1,455 provided valid follow-up data at T3. Manifest mean scores of ESE, EEI, and PPF were analyzed in Mplus 8.3 using robust maximum likelihood and full-information maximum likelihood for missing data.

The free-lag RI-CLPM showed excellent fit and was retained as the final model. At the within-person level, higher-than-usual ESE predicted higher-than-usual EEI at the subsequent wave across both intervals. Higher-than-usual EEI also predicted higher-than-usual PPF across both intervals. In addition, EEI at T2 positively predicted ESE at T3; individual between-interval path differences did not survive multiplicity adjustment. In contrast, PPF did not significantly predict later ESE or EEI. The specific indirect association from ESE_T1 to PPF_T3 through EEI_T2 was small (b = 0.02250; standardized estimate = 0.02038) and received tentative support from the 95% bias-corrected bootstrap interval [0.004, 0.051], while the Wald test was marginal (p = 0.055).

These findings identify exercise self-efficacy and the quality of extracurricular exercise involvement as candidate targets for experimental research on university students' perceived fitness.