Wallhead and Ntoumanis
belief that effort leads to success (Solmon, 1996). In contrast, perceptions of an
ego-involved climate have been found to relate to decreases in intrinsic motivation
(Papaioannou, 1995) and the perception that the teacher favors high achievers (Trea-
sure, 1997).
Although previous studies (Solmon, 1996; Treasure, 1997; Treasure & Rob-
erts, 2001) have lent some support to Ames’ call (1992) for a task-involved cli-
mate, most of them have been conducted with students of middle-school age
(Solmon, 1996; Treasure & Roberts, 2001). To date, little research in this domain
has been conducted with students of high school age as a target population. Con-
sidering recent findings (Xiang, Lee, & Shen, 2001) which show that as adoles-
cents progress through high school they tend to become more ego-goal oriented,
this population should be a priority for interventions of this type. Studies based on
the manipulation of Epstein’s (1989) TARGET dimensions for creating a task-
involved climate have also tended to use non-PE-specific activities (e.g., Solmon,
1996), thus they lack generalization to other physical education settings. One physi-
cal education curriculum that has been designed to be used in sport-based activi-
ties, and has recently shown the potential to increase students’ positive motivational
responses to physical education, is the Sport Education model (Siedentop, 1994).
The Sport Education curriculum model was designed to provide positive
motivational sport experiences for all students in physical education by simulating
key contextual features of authentic sport (Siedentop, 1994). In addition to helping
students improve their sport skills, sport education encourages them to fulfill other
sport related roles such as referee, team coach, captain, and serving on a sports
management board or as part of a duty team. Within the instructional structure of
this curriculum the students gradually assume greater responsibility for learning
while teachers relinquish traditional up-front direct teaching roles. The teacher,
after moving off center stage, often acts as facilitator to student social knowledge
and skill learning through a range of student-centered learning strategies.
Although not designed to be prescriptive in its implementation, the Sport
Education model has key organizational structures that differentiate it from the
traditional teacher-led physical education curricular model. Students work in the
same small group throughout the extended length curriculum/season and are given
responsibility for teaching each other skills within a cooperative group structure.
The teacher facilitates this process by helping students with their decision-making
for choice of practices, which must be inclusive for all members in the small group
structure. This instructional organizational structure has many similarities with the
contextual features of a task-involved climate (Ames, 1992) (see Table 1).
A number of studies in the pedagogy domain (Alexander & Luckman, 2001;
Carlson & Hastie, 1997; Grant, 1992) have reported the positive effect that Sport
Education has on student enthusiasm for physical education. Grant (1992) found
that Sport Education promoted team affiliation, enhanced relationships among team
members, and elevated enthusiasm among many students who previously seemed
to dislike physical education and sport. Grant suggested that this student enthusi-
asm could be attributed to the fact that much of the decision-making and control of
the experience was determined by the students themselves. Also, the students per-
ceived the teacher to be less dominant than in traditional curricular approaches
(Carlson & Hastie, 1997).
In a recent survey study of 344 Australian teachers’ perceptions of the Sport
Education model, Alexander and Luckman (2001) found that 83% of teachers agreed