Relationships Between Motivation and Award Status on Norm-Referenced Fitness Tests

Purpose: Many physical education teachers incorporate physical fitness tests as part of their curricular plans. Motivating individuals to be physically active has been identified as an important objective of fitness tests (PCPFS, 2003). Cale and Harris (2005) argue, however, that when fitness tests are norm-referenced, emphasizing competition and superiority over others, students may have negative experiences that serve to discourage physical activity. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate how motivation constructs differed according to whether or not elementary students received a President's Challenge Physical Fitness Award. Methods: Participants were 123 5th grade students (68 females, 55 males years; mean age = 11.08; SD = .44) at a public elementary school in the southeastern US who had recently participated in the President's Challenge. They completed an achievement goal questionnaire (modified from Duda, 1989; TEOSQ: task, ego), a modified version of McAuley, et al.'s (1989) Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI: perceived competence, enjoyment, effort, pressure), and items assessing future intention to participate. Instruments demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity. Students were classified as either receiving a fitness award (at or above the 50th percentile, including the National and Presidential Awards) or not receiving an award (those that performed below the 50th percentile) based on information provided by their physical education teachers. Analysis/Results: Differences between students who received awards and those who did not were tested using two MANOVAs (one for goal orientation and another for the IMI) and an ANOVA for intention. Award groups differed on goal orientation [Wilks' Lambda .881, F = 8.09 (2, 120), p < 0.001], intrinsic motivation [Wilks' Lambda .691, F = 13.12 (4, 118), p < 0.001], and intention [F (1, 121) = 14.503, p= .001)]. Students who received awards reported higher levels of task orientation, perceived competence, enjoyment, effort, and stronger intentions to participate in fitness testing in the future than those who did not receive awards. Conclusions: Results indicate that students who do not receive awards for fitness tests display a less adaptive motivational profile than those that receive awards. Those students are at risk to withdraw, fail to attempt/complete difficult tasks, and display a decrease in performance when they do not compare favorably with their peers (Weiss & Ferrer-Caja, 2002). This study highlights the significance of investigating how norm-referenced fitness tests affects the ways in which students come to understand ability and motivation to be physically fit and active across the lifespan.