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education Digelidis N, Papaioannou A. Age-group differences in intrinsic motivation, goal orientations and perceptions of athletic competence, physical appearance and motivational climate in Greek physical education. Scand J Med Sci Sports 1999: 9: 375-380. 0 Munksgaard, 1999 This study examined age-group differences in students' motivation, selfperceptions, task and ego orientations and perception of motivational climate in Greek physical education lessons. Six hundred and seventy-four students aged 10-17 years responded on self-reports which, in this study, had acceptable internal consistencies. The results showed that senior high school students scored lower on the scales assessing intrinsic motivation, perceived learning orientation in the lesson, task orientation and perceived athletic ability than junior high school and elementary school students. High school students had lower scores on the Perceived Physical Appearance scale and higher scores on the measure assessing perceptions of students' worries about mistakes than elementary school students. The results suggest that learning orientation should be strengthened in Greek physical education.Recent studies in Greece revealed age-group differences in children's intrinsic interest in physical education during high school (1). Today there are no studies examining differences in children's motivation in Greek physical education between elementary and high school. This article presents findings concerning the intrinsic motivation of Greek elementary, junior high school and senior high school students in physical education lessons. Moreover, data concerning age-group differences in some determinants of students' intrinsic motivation are also presented.These theories speculate that in achievement contexts like sport and physical education two different goal orientations predominate. A task (4), or learning (3), J Scandinavian Journal of

The purpose of this study was the application of a year-long intervention program, in typical Greek physical education school classes, which aimed to change motivational climate, goal orientations, motivation, and students' attitudes toward exercise and nutrition. Participants in the intervention program included 105 Grade-10 students, and 529 students of the same age took part as a control group. Immediately after the intervention, students in the experimental group compared to the control group: (a) had more positive attitudes toward exercise, participation in sports, and eating fruit; (b) perceived the motivational climate of the class as more task involving and less ego involving; and (c) spent more time exercising per session. The small significant effects that disappeared 10 months after the intervention imply that further theory development and interventions are needed.

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Background: 'Teaching games for understanding' (TGfU) is a tactical-game approach to teaching, in which participants are learning via the processes intrinsic to the games themselves. Purpose: The aim of the study was to examine the effectiveness of a tactical-game model in promoting metacognitive behaviour in elementary-school students. Participants and settings: Seventy-one students aged 11 -12 years were randomly assigned to an experimental group (13 boys and 16 girls) and a control group (19 boys and 23 girls). Research design: Teachers in the intervention classes applied the tactical-game approach (TGfU) in teaching volleyball. Within the control group, the technique-focus approach was applied. Data collection: Metacognitive behaviour was assessed pre and post-intervention via think-aloud protocols. Descriptive statistics showed that students from the experimental group made appreciable gains in metacognitive behaviour. Previous to the intervention programme 5.63% of students were categorized as high level in terms of metacognitive behaviour. After the intervention programme 22.53% were categorized at high level. Conclusions:The results imply that the tactical-game approach could improve metacognitive behaviour in physical education classes in elementary school.