Disentangling stable traits from dynamic processes: a longitudinal investigation of academic burnout and problematic mobile phone use.

The Physical Education Examination for High School Selection (PE examination) was originally instituted by the Chinese government (). It was designed as an institutional strategy to enhance adolescent health, with the aim of compelling schools, families, and students to prioritize daily physical activity (). China has gradually raised the scores of physical fitness tests to a level comparable to those of Chinese, mathematics, and English in the high school entrance examination, aiming to improve school physical education (). However, China’s educational context is highly competitive, the stress associated with physical examinations among junior high school students is a real and increasingly severe phenomenon (). It is also influenced by Confucian values, which emphasize academic achievement as a primary path for social mobility (). As a result, this well-intentioned policy has inadvertently become a notable source of stress for junior high school students. This appears to contradict the policy’s original purpose of fostering physical and mental well-being. China’s “Double Reduction” policy has significantly reduced academic workload and after-school tutoring demands (, ). While primarily aimed at alleviating academic stress, this policy has inadvertently increased attention to non-academic areas, including physical education. With less time spent on traditional academic subjects and tutoring, students and parents are now more focused on the PE examination as a key component of high school admission. This policy shift creates both an opportunity and a need for technology-based solutions—such as smartwatches—that can help students monitor and improve their physical fitness efficiently without adding excessive time burden. Thus, examining the role of smartwatch attitudes in mitigating PE examination stress is particularly relevant in the current policy context. The emergence of smartwatches offers a novel technological pathway that may help address this contradiction by directly addressing the psychological roots of examination stress. Traditional physical education relies heavily on professional teacher guidance based on subjective observation and experience. Modern smartwatches integrate multimodal biosensor systems that can precisely track key physiological metrics, including heart rate variability, exercise intensity, and calorie expenditure (). More importantly, these devices use machine learning-based data analysis to process biometric data and generate personalized, real-time feedback, such as intensity adjustment recommendations and virtual achievement rewards (). This creates a “digital mirror” that provides students with objective, visualized performance assessments. Importantly, smartwatch-generated data and teacher guidance are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary. Teachers can use students’ objective metrics to refine their instructional decisions, offer more targeted support, and enhance the human elements of encouragement and pedagogical adaptation. Together, this integrated approach is potentially associated with reduced uncertainty and anxiety linked to subjective evaluation alone, thereby transforming stressful exam preparation into a manageable, data-informed process without replacing the irreplaceable role of professional teaching.