engleski

Children in track-and-field-motivational aspects

Why do children choose to be engaged in sport ? This question about motivation is usually answered by conducting research studies involving groups of children who have already participated in sport for some time before testing and, sometimes, also with groups of sport nonparticipants.Neverthless, what is going on in the motivational realm before the real sport success starts to show is still unanswered question. In this research motives of children potentially talented for the various track-and-field disciplines (high jump, long jump from standing, shot-put � 2 or 3 kilos depending on category, 60 m sprinting) could be assesed prior they achieved any significant success. The 18-items Ryan� s Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (Mc Auley, Duncan and Tammen, 1989.), covering four dimensions of intrinsic motivation: interest- enjoyment, perceived competence, effort-importance and tension- pressure, was employed to examine altogether 86 girls and 70 boys in February 1997. Three years later the most talented for the track and field were selected from the general sample according to the following criteria : 1. being a member of the national team 2. winning one of the first three places at the national championship, or 3. being a member of a team which wins first place at the regional championship. Thus 13 girls and 13 boys were selected in a group of talented, while 73 girls and 57 boys comprised the unselected group. The results in the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory of the selected and unselected children were compared by means of multivariate discriminant analysis. The differences in intrinsic motivation between girls and boys were determined as well. They showed to be statistically significant, due mostly to the higher pressure-tension and effort-importance variables in boys and interest-enjoyement variables in girls. The expected differences between the adhering track-and-field competitors and the rest in the general sample were not found. Authors consider the generalization of the intrinsic motivation principles, that were similary in action in both groups, regardless of their inclination to more or less intensive track-and-field activity, to be the only possible reason for the obtained results. Neverthless, it is quite possible that some other sources of the group discrimination could have been in action, first of all the personality variables and/or extrinsic motivation variables.

children; track-and-field; motivation

nije evidentirano