Perceived Instructor Support and Student Motivation in a Summer Camp

Background/Purpose: Motivationis the force that drives people to initiate and sustain effort toward desired outcomes (Ryan & Deci, 2000a). It has been deemed as a key factor in the pursuit of a healthy lifestyle (Vallerand, 2007). In order to help students develop a lifetime physical activity habit, how to motivate them has been of great interests. According to self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000b), needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are essential to promoting student motivation. This study examined how physical activity instructor support affected student motivation through a group of at-risk boys’ perspectives.

Method: Participants were 102 boys (M age = 12.93 years old, SD = 1.22), recruited from a 3-week long summer sports camp in Southwestern Texas. The adapted Interpersonal Behavior Scale (IBS; Shen, Li, Sun, & Rukavina, 2010) assessed perceived instructor support for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The Behavioral Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire (BREQ-2; Markland & Tobin, 2004) assessed five types of motivation: amotivation, external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, and intrinsic motivation, and relative autonomy index (RAI) was calculated using the formula RAI= intrinsic × 3 + identified ×2 - introjected - external × 2 - amotivation × 3.

Analysis/Results: Data were analyzed using SPSS 22.0. Scale reliability analyses resulted in acceptable Cronbach’s α values ranging from .59 to .82. Zero-order correlation matrix revealed that RAI was statistically significantly correlated with perceived support for competence and relatedness (both r = .344, p < .01). Multiple regressions showed the perceived instructor supports all together explained 20.8% of the variance in RAI, F(3, 72) = 6.32, p < .01. Specifically, support for autonomy negatively predicted RAI (β = -.32, t = -2.06, p <. 05), support for competence (β =.45, t = 2.85, p <. 01) and support for relatedness (β =.28, t = 2.36, p <. 05) both positively predicted RAI.

Conclusions: In line with previous research (e.g., Ryan & Deci, 2000b; Vallerand, 2004), the three perceived instructor supports are all significant predictors of student motivation. However, that student motivation was negatively predicted by perceived autonomy support might be due to an externally regulated camp environment (e.g., Ryan & Deci, 2009; Sun & Chen, 2014). Instructors might give special attention to the boys’ senses of competence and relatedness during camp activities. Specifically, providing positive feedback to and promoting cooperation among the boys are recommended as strategies to foster motivation and participation in the sports camp setting.