Achievement Goals and Motivational Regulations in a Summer Sports Camp

Background/Purpose: School physical education programs face serious challenges in promoting students’ physical activity, due to the reallocation of time and resources to core academic subjects (Public Health Institute [PHI], 2010). After-school physical activity programs provide supplementary opportunities for students to participate in physical activity in and out of school (e.g., Garn et al., 2014). Recent research revealed children’s motivation and participation in physical activity are influenced by achievement goal orientations (e.g., Xiang, Liu, McBride, & Bruene, 2011). This study examines the predictability of achievement goals on at-risk boys’ motivational regulations in a summer sports camp.

Method: One hundred and two at-risk boys, aged 11-15 (M = 12.93, SD = 1.22), volunteered as participants. All were enrolled in a 3-week summer sports camp in Southwest Texas. The Achievement Goal Questionnaire – Physical Education (AGQ-PE; Guan, McBride, & Xiang, 2007) assessed mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals, and the Behavioral Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire (BREQ-2; Markland & Tobin, 2004) assessed five types of motivational regulations: amotivation, external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, and intrinsic motivation. Both instruments have demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity in physical activity/physical education settings.

Analysis/Results: A path analysis modeling the relationships between achievement goals and motivational regulations was performed with Mplus 7.0 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2012). The initial proposed model yielded a marginal fit (χ²/_df = 1.740, p = .0744; RMSEA = 0.086; SRMR = 0.050; CFI = 0.963). With one path added, the modified model generated a good fit (χ²/_df = .838, p = .569; RMSEA = 0.000; SRMR = 0.041; CFI = 1.000). To better demonstrate the predictability of achievement goals to motivational regulations, a parsimonious model was finalized with good model fit (χ²/_df = .256, p = .905; RMSEA = 0.000; SRMR = 0.041; CFI = 1.000).

Conclusions: Consistent with previous research (Gao et al., 2012; Su et al., in press), MAp goal positively predicted identified regulation and intrinsic regulation, and negatively predicted amotivation. In line with Gao et al.’s (2012) but different from Su et al.’s (in press) findings, PAp goal positively predicted intrinsic motivation. MAv goal negatively predicted intrinsic regulation. These results indicated that physical activity instructors can focus on helping students set mastery approach goals to increase intrinsic motivation and reduce amotivation. Further research can increase the generalizability by increasing sample size, including all socioeconomic backgrounds and both sexes.