Background/Purpose Amotivated students are a subgroup of students for which the physical education experience is often perceived as meaningless and boring, and manifests in a lack of attendance or minimal participation. A number of pedagogical strategies have been proposed to reduce the prevalence of amotivated students in physical education. An instructional model that has commonalities with many of these features is Sport Education (Siedentop, 1994). The purpose of this study was to provide an examination of the game play participation rates of amotivated students within a season of Sport Education.
Method A sample of 394 high school students from a compulsory physical education program completed a motivational profile survey and participated in a 25-lesson unit of Sport Education team handball. A hierarchical cluster analysis revealed a three cluster, low, moderate and high motivational profile groups. A stratified sample of 25 students from each of the three profiles were coded for ball success and active participation rates during the unit.
Analysis/Results Analysis revealed no significant differences in ball engagement or success rates across the three profile groups. The only significant difference occurred in the active participation between the high and low motivated students with high motivated students moving more often to receive a ball or defend support players.
Conclusions The results of this study revealed that the Sport Education model elicited a level of inclusivity to the physical education sport experience that facilitated amotivated students to participate in game play at a similar level to other students in the program.
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