Abstract: Objective: To explore the gender effects on middle school students’ psychological demand, participation motivation, exercise satisfaction and sense of happiness, and test the correlation of all factors through structural relationship model fitting. Results:(1) The difference in psychological needs, self-determination motivation and exercise satisfaction between middle school students of different genders is significant; (2)The structural relationship model fitting is at an acceptable level, and suitable for samples of different genders; (3)Middle school students’ psychological needs are in positive correlation with intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, and in negative correlation with non-motivation; (4)Intrinsic motivation is positively correlated to exercise satisfaction, and has no correlation with extrinsic motivation and non-motivation; (5)Middle school students’ exercise satisfaction is positively correlated to sense of happiness. Among them, relaxed satisfaction is in closest correlation with sense of happiness, the next two are psychological and social satisfaction, physiological satisfaction is least correlated, while education and aesthetic satisfaction have no correlation with sense of happiness.

Key words: middle school students, gender, leisure sports, psychological needs, participation motivation, exercise satisfaction, sense of happiness