Three Types of Perceived Competence in a Summer Sports Camp

Background/Purpose: Perceived competence (PC) is defined as students’ perceptions of what they can do and how good they are at different tasks (e.g., Xiang & Lee, 1998). PC plays a critical role in students’ motivation, engagement and performance in physical activity/physical education settings. Recent research (Spray & Warburton, 2011) revealed high school physical education students in England were able to distinguish three types of perceived competence: task mastery referenced (PC mastery), self-referenced (PC self), and other-referenced (PC other). The current study examines the differentiation and prediction of three types of perceived competence in effort among adolescent at-risk boys in a summer sports camp.

Method: As part of a larger project, participants in this study are 79 boys placed at-risk aged 10-14 years (M age = 11.91, SD= 1.21) attending a 3-week summer sports camp located in Texas during the summer of 2013. The population included 50.6% Hispanic-American, 25.3% Caucasian-American, 20.3% African-American and 3.8% others. A 10-item questionnaire assessed the three types of perceived competence and effort with the stem, “In my physical activity sessions at this camp…” Items were adapted from the research literature (e.g., Guan, Xiang, McBride, & Bruene, 2006; Spray & Warburton, 2011) and were accompanied by a five-point Likert scale ranging from not at all true (1) to very true (5).  

Analysis/Results: An exploratory factor analysis yielded three distinct categories of perceived competence accounting for 81.65% variance. Factor loadings ranged from .86 to .90. The three-factor model was supported by a confirmatory factor analysis (χ ²/df = 1.33, CFI = .997, TLI = .993, RMSEA = .006, SRMR = .008). Cronbach’s alphas for the scores of PC mastery, PC self, PC other, and effort were .77, .82, .69 and .74, respectively. A multiple regression analysis revealed three types of perceived competence collectively accounted for 34% of variance in effort (F (3, 77) = 12.51, p < .001), with PC mastery (β = .42, t = 4.014, p < .01) and PC self (β = .272, t = 2.465, p< .05) emerging as significant positive predictors.    

Conclusions: Consistent with previous research, three types of perceived competence were distinguishable among these adolescent at-risk boys in the present study. Given that PC mastery and PC self positively predicted boys’ effort, we recommend that this summer sports camp focus on helping the boys construe competence based on how well they master the camp’s physical activities and how much they improve in those activities.