Traditionally, amotivation has been placed on the SDT continuum on the opposite end of intrinsic motivation and adjacent to the lowest form of extrinsic motivation (external regulation) giving the impression that the locus of its regulatory mechanisms lies externally. This assumption was explored in this study that examined both the first order latent variables and then the validity of the means for calculating the self-determination index (SDI) score using the traditional, albeit arbitrary, weighting system first proposed by Blais, et al. (1990). Therefore the purpose of this study was to use CFA to examine both first- and second-order latent variable effects via the modified sport motivation scale for PE (SMS-PE) in secondary PE students in the US and the UK.
Method:
Data from 1438 US and British secondary PE students were gathered using the 28-item, 7-factor SMS-PE. CFA to assess and compare the goodness of fit of the original scale to several alternative versions of the SMS. CFA was again used to test the validity of the traditional SDI score calculations by examining the second-order latent variables. CFA and the graphic depiction of the resulting model were generated by AMOS-SPSS (2011).
Analysis/Results:
Results show that the SDI score was not one-dimensional as originally supposed but was more fully represented by two, second-order latent variables (internal and external). As expected, external regulation was increasingly evident in lower levels of extrinsic motivation and internal regulation was increasingly associated with identified regulation and intrinsic motivation. However, amotivation was entirely associated with internal (behaving more like the antithesis of intrinsic motivation) rather than external as has been formerly postulated.
Conclusions:
This study provides support for the notion that amotivation is not simply a lower or lowest form of externally regulated behaviors. Results suggest that the regulatory mechanisms for amotivation may actually reside internally but that they are manifest in a negative rather than a positive direction (as with intrinsic motivation). In other words, amotivated behavior is personally owned but negatively manifested by persons who choose to disengage for a variety of reasons rather than be forced out by externally driven motives.