Wallhead and Ntoumanis
approach. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that changes in students’ perceptions
of a task-involving climate, task goal orientation, and perceived autonomy would
predict increases in student enjoyment, perceived effort, and perceived compe-
tence in the Sport Education curriculum group.
Method
Setting and Participants
The study took place in a state-run coeducational high school in the north of
England. The sample consisted of children from low to middle income house-
holds. The representation of ethnic minority students in the school was approxi-
mately 10% and was reflective of the local community. Physical education was
taught in single-sex groups for 1 hour per week and was compulsory for all stu-
dents up to the age of 16 years. The two curricular programs were implemented in
the games-based activity of basketball.
Participants in the study were 51 boys with a mean age of 14.3 yrs1 (SD =
0.48). Their ethnicity consisted of 46 Caucasians and 5 of Asian descent. None of
the students had been taught basketball in the current academic year, and none had
experience with a Sport Education curriculum. Signed informed consent for the
study was obtained from the school, the students, and their parents.
The teacher of the two intact classes had 5 years of teaching experience as
well as previous experience with the Sport Education curriculum model in basket-
ball physical education lessons. The teacher was also the researcher and therefore
was aware of the purpose of the study.
Measures
Enjoyment, Effort, and Perceived Competence. To assess student motiva-
tional responses to the curricular programs, we had the students respond to a ver-
sion of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI; Ryan, 1982) as reworded for use
in sport settings by McAuley, Duncan, and Tammen (1989). The IMI requires
participants to respond to 18 items which assess four underlying dimensions of
intrinsic motivation: Enjoyment/Interest, Effort/Importance, Perceived Competence,
and Pressure/Tension. Each item was answered on a 7-point scale ranging from 1
= “very strongly disagree” to 7 = “very strongly agree.” The scores for enjoyment,
perceived effort, and perceived competence were calculated as the mean of the
responses to each item of the respective subscales. Prior research has demonstrated
adequate validity and reliability of the scale when used with adolescents in physi-
cal education (Goudas & Biddle, 1994; Mitchell, 1996).
Achievement Goal Orientations. The participants’ dispositional achieve-
ment goal orientations were assessed using the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport
Questionnaire (TEOSQ; Duda & Nicholls, 1992). This questionnaire requires par-
ticipants to think of when they feel most successful in physical education and then
respond to 13 items reflecting an ego or a task goal orientation. Each item was
1 Students in England generally start high school at age 13 (Year 9), which is equiva-
lent to Grade 8 in the U.S. The students in this study were from Year 10, the equivalent of
high school freshman in the U.S.