Effects of a Sport Education Intervention on Students’ Motivational Responses in Physical Education



16


Wallhead and Ntoumanis

joyment, perceived effort, and perceived competence, thus supporting our hypoth-
esis. Previous research (Mitchell, 1996; Papaioannou, 1995) has indicated that
students in physical education report higher intrinsic motivation when they per-
ceive a task-involving climate.

These results suggest that the Sport Education unit delivered in this inter-
vention facilitated perceptions of a task-involving climate, which in turn fostered
adaptive motivational responses. Furthermore, postintervention perceived autonomy
positively predicted perceived competence. This finding supports the notion that
perceived autonomy can have a positive effect on student motivational outcomes.
In practical terms this means that when students engage in the Sport Education
curriculum, they do so because they personally grasp its value for game play and
team building, and so are more likely to feel competent in the various sport activi-
ties. Finally, although not part of the initial hypotheses of the study, it is of interest
that post-intervention ego orientation negatively predicted enjoyment in the Sport
Education curriculum. This finding is consonant with theoretical arguments and
empirical evidence (Ames, 1992).

The results of this study indicate that the structural characteristics of the
Sport Education curriculum, such as team continuity and peer coaching, could
facilitate a task-involving climate. Despite this, the inherent nature of formal com-
petition in the final phase of the curriculum may have attenuated, for some stu-
dents, the positive experiences from Sport Education. The phase of formal
competition in the model brings with it the potential for students to judge success
based on norm-referenced criteria. This type of evaluation can create an ego-
involving climate, and many lower skilled students may perceive this competitive
environment more as a threat and less intrinsically motivating (Mitchell, 1996).
Although the use of formal competition is a basic tenet of the Sport Education
curriculum model, a teacher’s overemphasis on game results in determining sea-
son champions could create an environment that forces children to overtly evalu-
ate themselves in relation to others. Implementing multiple strategies such as fair
play evaluations, performance of duty roles, and other season related tasks may
help prevent excessive emphasis on normative ability comparisons and the nega-
tive motivational outcomes associated with an ego-involving climate.

Although this study has contributed to the literature on how a goal-perspec-
tive approach can optimize learning environments in sport-based physical educa-
tion, there are limitations that must be considered. One was the size and composition
of the intervention sample. With only two groups of boys in its design, this study
cannot be readily generalized to girls taking part in the Sport Education curricu-
lum. There is also the possibility of bias in that the researcher acted as the teacher
and was aware of the study objectives. The use of several teachers delivering the
Sport Education curriculum to a larger number of coeducational classes might
alleviate this potential sampling and researcher bias. Furthermore, researchers
should conduct longitudinal studies that would provide more insight into how in-
creased exposure to the Sport Education curriculum might shape students’ long-
term motivational responses to physical education.

Despite its limitations, however, the results of this study have shown that the
Sport Education curriculum model has many structural features which, when uti-
lized effectively by teachers, have the potential to foster more adaptive student
motivational responses by creating an environment that better caters for self-
improvement, choice, and equity for students.



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