Haerens Leen

Leen Haerens leads the research group in Sports Pedagogy at Ghent University, Department of Movement and Sports Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.  Starting from Self-Determination Theory, her research group examines the motivating style of physical education teachers, youth sport coaches, managers, and health counselors. She has particularly acquired expertise with respect to the development of self-reported and observation scales that tap into teachers’, sport coaches’, managers, and health counselors’ motivating style, and with the development of SDT-based intervention studies. During the past years, she has published over 90 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts in this area of research.​ She also coordinates the educational master program in Physical Education and the Educational Master Program in Health Sciences within Ghent University.