Developmental Trajectories of Motivation in Physical Education: Course, Demographic Differences, and Antecedents

This study investigated changes in student motivation to participate in physical education and some determinants of these changes over a period of 3 years. Measures were taken twice a year, from age 13 until age 15, from a sample of Greek junior high school students. Multilevel modeling analyses showed significant decreases in task-involving teacher climate, relatedness, identified regulation, and intrinsic motivation. In contrast, there were significant increases in ego-involving climate and amotivation. For some of these variables, the observed linear decreases or increases were somewhat reversed by the beginning of the last year of junior high school. No significant changes were observed in competence need satisfaction and in extrinsic and introjected regulations. The authors found substantial between-student variability in the intercepts and growth trajectories of most variables, and therefore they tested a number of theoretical and demographic predictors to partly account for such variations. The results indicate that increases in maladaptive motivation in physical education over time are not uniform across all students and may be partly tackled by facilitating competence need satisfaction.