Perceived motivational climate and cognitive and affective correlates among Norwegian athletes

Abstract

Based on Ames' conception of situational goal structures, the present study investigated whether achievement-related cognitions and affect were related to specific motivational climates. The participants were 148 experienced students in team sport at a Norwegian university who responded to a questionnaire on their perceptions of the motivational climate in their sport, use of learning strategies, satisfaction, sources of satisfaction and perceived purposes of participating in sport. Canonical correlation analysis revealed that the perception of the motivational climate as either mastery- or performance-involving was related to reporting of affect, achievement strategies and perceived purposes of sport in a conceptually consistent manner. Controlling for dispositional goals, regression analyses, in which the athletes' dispositional achievement goals were controlled, showed that perception of a performance-oriented climate emerged as a negative and unique predictor of satisfaction or interest in addition to the variance accounted for by ego orientation. Athletes who perceived the motivational climate as mastery-oriented endorsed mastery as a source of satisfaction, and were less inclined to report avoiding practice. In addition, athletes who perceived the climate as mastery-oriented believed that sport may develop lifetime skills. In contrast, perceiving the climate as performance-oriented was positively related to status as a perceived purpose of team sport. Our findings suggest that, when athletes perceive the sport climate as task-involving, it facilitates the adoption of adaptive learning strategies, the use of controllable criteria to determine satisfaction, and enhances perception of sport as being important for developing lifetime skills.