engleski

Acheivement orientation in track and field children

INTRODUCTION 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 group of nonparticipants. Nevertheless, what is going on in the motivational realm before the real sport success starts to show is still unanswered question. As it is explained in some researches (Roberts, 1993), motivation is not considered to be innate, it is considered to be a learned attribute of a person. If we want to explore why do children choose and persist in sport activity, it is of the main purpose to argue about motive states and achievement behaviors in all their forms. Competitive achievement behavior is one of the prominent features of sport and exercise activities (Gill, Deeter, 1988). How high individual investment such as effort, talent or time in a sport activity will be depends on achievement goals of a potential athlete. According to numerous authors (Roberts, 1993 ; White, Duda, 1994 ; Newton, Duda, 1999 ; Biddle, 1999), two dispositional points exist and differentiate among individuals in their goal perspective decisions. These achievement goals have been contrasted as the task versus ego orientation (Duda, 1989), as the learning versus performance orientation (Papaioannou, 1994, 1998), or the mastery versus ability criteria (Ames, 1984 according to Roberts, 1993, Theboom et al., 1995 ; Goudas, 1998). When an athlete is task oriented, he/she is concerned with demonstrating high mastery in learning sport skills. The perceptions of ability are self-referenced and dependent on learning, effort investment and personal improvement. It is corresponding positively with intrinsic motivation, greater enjoyment, positive attitude development and higher quality of performance (Goudas, 1998 ; Theeboom et. al. 1995). On the contrary, ego oriented athlete tends to judge the level of his/her competence in reference to the performance of others ; only if his/her performance is better than the others� the athlete experiences success (normative based criteria). Ego oriented athletes differentiate abilities from effort (Biddle, 1999) believing that success is a result of the superior abilities. In general, it is related to competitiveness and results with low intrinsic motivation, lower perceived competence and less enjoyment. Therefore, it is very important to understand better all underlying mechanisms that could impact, enhance or diminish sport performance. This paper deals with sport orientation of young track-and-field athletes. Recognition of individual differences in achievement orientation in early stage of sport involvement could be an element for specific approach or selection criteria. Principals of gradual work with children-athletes demand a wide motor basis to be developed first in order to ensure an optimal motor functioning in adulthood. Therefore, children in track-and-field usually practice versatile athletic disciplines in the beginning. Such approach could increase their motivation, and impact their goal orientation. Although competition is a dominant achievement situation for all sports, it is possible to strive for success in non-competitive sport situation as well (Gill, Deeter, 1988), striving toward personal standards within competitive activity. According to this hypothesis, authors presumed that there should be some differences in sport orientation components between young track-and-field competitors prospectively elite and average ones. In 1988 Gill and Deeter developed the Sport Orientation Questionnaire to measure achievement orientation in sport environment. The purpose of this study was to assess young track-and-field athletes� motivation through the goal achievement orientation view. METHODS AND PROCEDURE Participants The sample consists of 101 girls and 82 boys, elementary school students, born between 1982.-1986. They were selected as potentially talented for track-and-field disciplines on the basis of their results in:  students born in 1982. and 1983. : sprint 60 m, high jump, shot put, relay ;  students born in 1984. and 1985. : sprint 60 m, standing long jump, shot put, relay ;  students born in 1986. and younger : sprint 60 m, standing long jump, relay. In February 1997. after the competition in their events, participants completed the 25-item Sport Orientation Questionnaire (SOQ, Gill and Deeter, 1988). Three years later the most successful in track-and-field were recognized among the initially tested young athletes 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 that won first place at the regional championship. This group of prospective athletes derived from the whole sample of young track-and-field athletes comprised of 17 girls and 12 boys. Therefore the participants in this research are divided into four groups: two groups, girls (84) and boys (79) formerly denoted as talented for track-and-field events, but they did not adhere to the training at the higher level of competition, or they dropped out completely ; and two groups, girls (17) and boys (12) that have become high-quality competitors in the track-and-field events. The samples are practically the same as in research of Babić, Barić and Horga, 2000, with few exceptions due to the fact that all children have not completed the whole set of inventories. Variables The Sport Orientation Questionnaire (SOQ, Gill and Deeter, 1988) consists of 25-items. Questionnaire items represent achievement orientation across sport and exercise activities and cover three motivational factors. This structure was confirmed on the sample of undergraduate (Gill and Deeter, 1988 ; Štimac, Barić, 2000) and high school students (Gill and Deeter, 1988). The first factor represents competitiveness motive, a desire to enter and strive for success in sport achievement situation. The second factor represents win orientation, a desire to win in interpersonal competition in sport. The third factor represents goal orientation, a desire to reach personal goals in sport (Gill and Deeter, 1988). Procedures The SOQ answers given by all participants from the total sample (101 girls and 82 boys) initially collected in February 1997, were processed as follows:  answers to the inventory items were condensed to three factors according to Gill and Deeter factor analysis of the inventory. The factors were: competitiveness, win orientation and goal orientation. Such derived results were submitted to the descriptive statistic analysis,  multivariate discriminant analysis was employed to differentiate between: - sport orientation factors in boys and girls,  sport orientation factors in selected and unselected groups - sport orientation factors in selected and unselected girls, - sport orientation factors in selected and unselected boys RESULTS The results are presented in table 1 (discriminant analyses) and table 2 (means of achievement factors). Results in table 1 show that there exist significant differences between girls and boys, between selected and unselected track-and field athletes and between selected and unselected girls, while the difference between selected and unselected boys is not statistically significant. Though significant, canonical R� s are small accounting for only a weak part of the variability between achievement orientation factors and belonging to the group.It has to be pointed out that the number of subjects in the selected groups is small, so the conclusions about the results of discriminant analyses must be treated with caution. Table 1. The results of discriminant analysis (number of subjects in groups are given in brackets) C=competitiveness, W=desire to win, P=personal goals Canonical R p-level Correlation between variables and can. roots Girls (101) vs. boys (82) 0.21 0.00 C 0.99 W 0.54 P 0.60 Selected (29) vs. unselected (154) 0.26 0.01 C 0.34 W -0.32 P 0.79 Selected girls (17) vs. unselected (84) 0.32 0.01 C 0.23 W -0.38 P 0.76 Selected boys (12) vs. unselected (70) 0.22 0.29 C 0.66 W � 0.43 P 0.58 The most prominent difference between girls and boys is in competitiveness. (table 1 and 2). As it was shown in some other investigations ( Duda, 1989 ; White, Duda, 1994 and others) girls are less competitive than boys. But the girls also have less desire to win and strive less for personal goals than boys do. The differences between selected and unselected athletes are mostly due to the difference between girls and boys. The most influential for this difference is striving for personal goals (table1), selected athletes striving more than unselected do(table 2). So it seems that desire to win and to compete in track-and-field in childhood is not as important for the excellence as it is striving for personal goals. Having in mind that track-and-field events belong to the so called � closed sports� where the participant depends only on his/her motor program, which has to be trained in detail, and its performance, the greatest influence of striving for personal goals in those who succeeded is somehow expected. The same can be said about the significant difference between selected and unselected girls, while the boys showed no difference. Table 2. Means of three motivational factors for the high-quality and potentially talented track-and-field groups High quality tr.-and-fld. competitors Potentially talented for tr.-and-field In total Girls (17) Boys (12) Tot.(29) Girls (84) Boys (70) Tot. (154) Grls.(101) Boys (82) Competitiveness 4.06 4.62 4.29 3.94 4.40 4.15 3.96 4.43 Wining 2.95 3.69 3.26 3.29 3.72 3.49 3.24 3.71 Personal goals 4.61 4.76 4.67 4.26 4.55 4.39 4.32 4.58 Though not tested for significance, it is interesting to inspect the means of the three factors for every group separately. In every group striving for personal goals reaches the highest value, desire to win the lowest. So the popular view that youth sport participants mostly want to win seems not to be true. The similar was shown by Wankel and Kreisel, 1985, Theeboom et al, 1995. and others. CONCLUSION It can be concluded that the most prominent feature of future high-quality young competitors in track-and field events is striving for personal goals. Further, it means that track-and� field talented children can be recognised, among the other features, also according to their concern about demonstrating high mastery in learning sport skills, greater effort investment, greater enjoyment in training etc. If these results would be confirmed in other investigations, they could be used as a guideline how to motivate young athletes

acheivement orientation; sport orientation; children; track-and-field

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