The Social Context as a Determinant of Teacher Motivational Strategies in Physical Education

THE SOCIAL CONTEXT AS 10

perform because they need something so they can actually get anywhere in
life.

Similarly, Hayley, a PE teacher with 25 years experience, highlighted the increased
emphasis on student assessment compared to when she first began teaching. Also, she
indicates that she would prefer to give students more practice time to enhance their
competence, rather than assessing them:

Hayley: Now that PE, like any other subject, has got to have an assessment at
the end of it, you've got to give them a level. Whereas, I wasn't brought up
into teaching where you gave them a level or a grade, but it was always “your
son is an excellent sportsman”.

Interviewer: Has that affected the way you teach in any way?

Hayley: They’ve got to put it into a routine and they’ve got to show me this
and I’m rushing it through. Whereas, I think some kids would have benefited
a damn sight better from me taking my time and just getting them to achieve
something that they could achieve, keep practicing it. They’ve lost out on
practice time because they’re expected to bung that in that routine, show miss,
“yes that was brilliant”, so I’ve found that a bit limiting and restricting.

This conflict between an assessment-based culture and the teachers’ wishes regarding
how they would like to teach was also mentioned by Joe, a 27 year-old colleague of Simon’s:
“I don't want to use ‘come on, this is all for your grades’, because obviously PE is more than
that, but that is a motivating factor at the end of the day”. Joe assumes that emphasizing
grades will motivate students, but other reasons to participate in PE exist. Indeed, SDT
argues that if short-term participation is taken as the primary indicator, emphasizing grades
may successfully energize students during boring activities. Nonetheless, the detrimental
cognitive, affective and behavioral consequences of promoting an external focus (i.e.

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