The Effects of the Type of Skill Test, Choice, and Gender on the Situational Motivation of Physical Education Students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of (a) skill test type, (b) choices, and (c) gender on the situational motivation profiles of adolescents during skill testing in physical education. Participants were 507 students (53% male) aged 12-16 years (M = 13.87; SD = 0.94) attending a suburban junior high school in a western state in the U.S. All participants experienced either a norm-referenced, summative or a criterion-referenced, formative skill test with or without choices. The Situational Intrinsic Motivation Scale (SIMS) was administered to assess situational motivation. A 2 (test type) × 2 (choice) × 2 (gender) MANOVA was used to test for significant differences on each of the four SIMS indices. Significant test type and gender and a significant test type by gender interaction were found. These findings suggest practitioners should use criterion-referenced, formative skill tests especially when teaching girls in physical education.

An Investigation of Adolescent Girls’ Global Self-Concept, Physical Self-Concept, Identified Regulation, and Leisure-Time Physical Activity in Physical Education

“…A choice-based program may help remedy this issue. Future research should continue to investigate the impact of choice-based curriculum in relation to adolescent girls' autonomous motivation (Johnson, Prusak, Pennington, & Wilkinson, 2011) and physical self-concept.…”

Emotional experience in individual and cooperative traditional games. A gender perspective.

“…This research has produced a set of scientific criteria that could be applied to PE programs that seek to promote gender equity and subjective well-being (Ciarrochi & Scott, 2006;Diener, 2009;Johnson et al, 2011;Lavega et al, 2014;Vera et al, 2009). Indeed, the results highlight the need to consider individual gender and group gender composition as predictors of emotional experience during sport games.…”

“…Consequently, students with a sporting background are more affected by winning or losing than are students without previous experience of competitive sport. A further point is that the two groups of students will probably have internalized different stereotypes into their sense of self during the socialization process (Chalabaev et al, 2013;Johnson et al, 2011).…”

“…(2) The main predictor variables for positive and ambiguous emotions will be subject variables (gender, gender group composition) and internal game variables (type of game in terms of interaction and competition). The game is principally a source of pleasure (Parlebas, 2001), and subjective well-being can be generated both by participation in the game (Lavega, Aráujo et al, 2013) and by the gender of the participants (Bolaños & Jimé-nez, 2007;Johnson, Prusak, Pennington, & Wilkinson, 2011;Lavega, Aráujo et al, 2013). (3) The variables associated with the gender perspective (gender, gender group) are predictors of negative emotions.…”

Autonomy, Choice, and Pupils’ Motivation—Are They Really Related?

“…Based on SDT, it is possible to hypothesize that in physical education lessons promoting or supporting learner autonomy, some sort of choice will be offered in terms of type of sport, continuity in the lesson, and level of difficulty of the material being taught, as a result of which learners will manifest higher motivation than in lessons where the teacher determines the activity and does not offer a choice (see Johnson, Prusak, Pennington, & Wilkinson, 2011;Prusak, Treasure, Darst, & Pangrazi, 2004). However, contradictory findings often emerged from the studies that examined these links.…”