Achievement Goals, Social Goals, and Motivational Outcomes in Physical Education

Purpose: Achievement goal theory has been widely used to investigate how students' mastery and performance goals affect achievement outcomes in physical education (PE) settings. Few studies, however, have examined the social motivation for engaging in PE, as the influence of social goals on achievement-related outcomes (i.e., concentration, task challenge, and future expectations for enjoyment) has received little attention. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among achievement goals, social goals, and motivational outcomes in PE. The 2×2 achievement goal framework, including mastery-approach (MAp), mastery-avoidance (MAv), performance-approach (PAp), and performance-avoidance (PAv) goals (Elliot & McGregor, 2001) was used. Social goals consist of social responsibility (SRb) and social relationship (SRs) goals (Patrick et al., 1997). Methods: Participants were 282 middle school students (147 female, 135 male) in a Southeastern public school. They completed surveys validated in previous research assessing their perceptions of achievement and social goals (Guan et al., 2006), and motivational outcomes (concentration, task challenge, and future expectations for enjoyment; Duncan, 1993; Standage et al., 2005). Pearson-product correlations were used to examine the relationships among the variables. Three multiple regression analyses were performed to identify the predictors of motivational outcomes. A 2×3 (Gender×Grade) MANOVA was employed to examine gender and grader differences among the variables. Analysis/Results: Correlational analyses revealed a pattern of significant positive relationships among the study variables. Multiple regression analyses indicated that SRb, MAp and PAp were positive predictors of concentration (η² = 28.5 %, all ps < .01). For task challenge, PAp (p <.01) and SRs (p <.05) emerged as positive predictors (η² = 11.6 %). Future expectations for enjoyment were positively predicted by MAp, SRb, but PAv was negative predictor (η² = 31.7 %, all ps < .01). The MANOVA yielded a significant main effect for gender, Wilks' Lambda = .90, F (9, 268) = 3.28, p <.01, and grade, Wilks' Lambda = .87, F (18, 536) = 2.10, p <.01. Univariate follow-ups revealed that boys reported significantly higher PAp, MAp and future expectations for enjoyment than girls. Additionally, sixth and seventh graders had higher levels of PAv and concentration than eighth graders, and sixth graders reported higher levels of MAv than eighth graders. Conclusions: The results indicated that both achievement goals and social goals had impact on students' motivational outcomes. These findings highlight the importance of using a multidimensional goal approach when assessing students' motivation in PE.