The relationship among dispositional, contextual variables, and intrinsic motivation in high school team sports

The purposes of this study were to (a) examine the difference in goal orientations, motivational climate, perceived competence, perceived coaching behaviors and intrinsic motivation of athletes as a function of gender, playing status, and competitive level, (b) explore the compatibility of the athletes and coaches in terms of motivational climate and perceived coaching behaviors, (c) predict perceived coaching behaviors and (d) predict intrinsic motivation of athletes. Male and female high school athletes (N = 144) and their coaches (N = 18) from three sports (basketball, baseball and softball) completed an Athletes\u27 and Coaches\u27 Multi-Section Questionnaire. A (Gender x Playing Status x Competitive Level) MANOVA showed a significant gender main effect, and a playing status main effect. Male athletes felt that coaches displayed more democratic behaviors and provided greater social support while female athletes felt less athletically competent and more pressure/tension. Starting players had higher interest/enjoyment and higher effort/importance toward their sport and they felt more athletically competent than bench (substitute) players. The multivariate analyses of variance comparing all coaches versus athletes, and also all coaches versus male and female athletes separately revealed a significant main effect. Coaches perceived the athletic environment as more task-separately. Male athletes perceived the environment as more democratic and their coaches as more socially supportive while female athletes perceived their coach as giving less positive feedback. The multivariate multiple regression for goal perspectives and perceived coaching behaviors revealed a significant function that indicates that athletes who had higher task-orientation (.99), higher perception of a task climate (30) and lower ego-orientation (−.62) felt higher training/instruction (.92), higher democratic behavior (.46), higher social support (.70), higher positive feedback (.80), and lower autocratic behavior (−.39) from their coaches. The multivariate multiple regression produced a significant function indicating that athletes who perceived more training/instruction (.77), higher democratic behaviors (.53), more social support (.73), higher positive feedback (.58) and lower autocratic behaviors (−.62), felt more interest/enjoyment (.93), more effort/importance (.69) and less tension and pressure (−.60) in a given sport context. The paper concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and applied issues related to the results as well as suggestions for future research