Shenakht Journal of Psychology & Psychiatry

Background: Ethical leadership is regarded as a supportive style that promotes students’ psychosocial well-being and can foster their sustained participation in physical activity.
Purpose: The primary aim of this study was to examine the mediating role of sport passion in the relationship between teachers’ ethical leadership and students’ positive psychological outcomes.
Methods: This descriptive–correlational study was conducted on high school students in Isfahan during 2023–2024. A total of 403 questionnaires were collected through multi-stage cluster sampling. The instruments included standardized questionnaires on ethical leadership, sport identity, perceived locus of causality in physical education (PLOC-PE), and sport passion. The validity and reliability of the measures were confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling in SmartPLS version 4.
Results: The findings indicated that teachers’ ethical leadership had a significant positive relationship with intrinsic motivation, sport passion, and sport identity (P ≤ 0.05). Sport passion also showed a significant positive relationship with intrinsic motivation and sport identity (P ≤ 0.05). Bootstrap analysis revealed that sport passion significantly mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and both intrinsic motivation and sport identity.
Conclusion: These results suggest that teachers’ ethical leadership can enhance students’ intrinsic motivation and foster the development of a stable sport identity through increasing their passion for sport. Therefore, it is recommended that physical education teacher training programs emphasize the development of ethical leadership skills and socio-emotional support to promote students’ psychosocial well-being and sustained engagement in physical activity.