Motivational Climate's Longitudinal Influence on Motivational Outcomes

Purpose

Coaches often ask how they can effectively motivate young athletes in the practice environment. One key lies in the motivational climate created by the coach and perceived by the athlete. Specifically, research has revealed that perceiving the climate to be task-involving has been positively associated with adaptive practice strategies (Ames & Archer, 1988; Gano-Overway & Ewing, 2004) and higher levels of perceived competence (Cury, et al., 1996; Goudas & Biddle, 1994; Nicholls, 1989; Wallhead & Ntoumanis, 2004). Additionally, researchers have demonstrated that perceiving the climate to be highly task-involving can enhance levels of task orientation over time if the initial task orientation was low (Gano-Overway & Ewing, 2004). However, more work is needed to examine the influence on goal orientations, practice strategies, and perceived competence over time. Additionally, work is needed to explore the longitudinal outcomes when individuals' goal orientations are incongruent with the perceived motivational climate. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the motivational climate on individuals' goal orientations, practice strategies, and perceived competence over time.

Methods

The participants were 124 middle school student-athletes who were members of a no-cut team sports program. They completed a series of surveys three times over the course of their athletic seasons related to goal orientations, practice strategies, perceived athletic competence, and perceived motivational climate. Additionally, a slightly modified version of the PMCSQ-2 was used to obtain the coaches' perception of the motivational climate and a separate observational checklist was used to verify the perceptions of the motivational climate.

Analysis/Results

A repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted for each orientation to examine change in goal orientations over time as a function of the perceived motivational climate and one's goal orientation at the start of the season. Additionally, hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to test whether the perceived motivational climate predicted perceived competence and use of practices strategies at the end of the season after taking into consideration pre-season measures. Results indicated that when the perceived motivational climate was incompatible with goal orientation, there was a significant shift in student-athletes' goal orientation over time. Findings also indicated that perceptions of a task-involving climate positively predicted perceived competence and practice strategies at the end of the season after preseason values were taken into account.

Conclusions

These findings provide further evidence for the importance of developing a task-involving climate in the sport setting.