Background/Purpose Despite a commonly held belief that sport participation leads to positive experiences and developmental outcomes, little is known about: (a) how and why sport participation leads to more or less positive outcomes, and (b) how adults in sport – namely parents and coaches – influence these outcomes in youth. Grounded in self-determination theory, the purpose of this study was to examine whether changes in motivation and well-being (i.e., burnout and self-esteem) of adolescent sport participants across a season are predicted by perceived autonomy support from parents and coaches and the satisfaction of youth's psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness.
Method Athletes (N = 391; M age = 15.43 years; 60.9% female; 85.9% Caucasian) from a variety of school-sponsored sport teams completed valid and reliable questionnaires at the beginning and end of their competitive season.
Analysis/Results Path analysis results showed that perceived autonomy support from coaches positively predicted changes in athletes' psychological need satisfaction, which in turn positively predicted changes in their self-determined motivational orientation and self-esteem and negatively predicted changes in burnout. Autonomy support from mothers and fathers were non-significant predictors. The model, which fit the data well (SB ×2=10.81, df=9, p=.29, RMSEA=.02), accounted for 19-24% of the variation in need satisfaction changes and 8%, 6%, and 12% of the variation in changes in motivational orientation, self-esteem, and burnout, respectively.
Conclusions The results support the basic tenants of self-determination theory and highlight the important role played by coaches in determining whether sport participation results in positive or negative outcomes.
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