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

THE SOCIAL CONTEXT AS 19

In addition to demands from school authorities and the time constraints of PE lessons,
teachers highlighted that they behaved differently depending on the students. For example,
Simon indicated that he behaves differently depending on the students’ general motivation at
school (i.e., not just their motivation in PE):

Students who are highly motivated with school, the chances are that you're
going to be able to develop relationships with them quicker and friendships
with them quicker so they'll be responding to you better. Whereas, the group
who don’t have a good opinion of school, good motivation for school, takes
longer to develop that relationship and so you may well treat the groups
differently.

In addition, many teachers mentioned that their choice of strategy depends on the
students’ motivation specifically towards PE. Previous research (e.g., Pelletier et al., 2002;
Taylor & Ntoumanis, 2007) has similarly found that teacher perceptions of student
motivation were related to the degree of autonomy support they provided. This influence is
exemplified by Carl:

Interviewer: Can you give me an example when you have changed your
teaching?

Carl: If children are extremely motivated for PE, then you try and give them a
bit more responsibility, because they’re willing to take it on and to help the
lesson. Those people who aren’t well motivated you try, what would you try
and do? If they’re not that well motivated to the extent that they don’t bring
their kit or anything you have to let them know it’s not acceptable for them
not to bring their kit.

Teachers’ reactions toward poorly motivated students are not always the most
appropriate as shown by experimental and PE-based research indicating that teachers prefer

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