Achievement goals, motivational climate and sportspersonship: a study of young handball players

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between achievement goals, perceptions of motivational climate and sportspersonship in a sample of young male Norwegian handball players. A cross‐sectional study of 440 male handball players aged from 14 to 16 was conducted, in which the players responded to a questionnaire measuring different dimensions of sportspersonship, achievement goals and the motivational climate. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that players who were task‐oriented and those that perceived the motivational climate as predominantly mastery‐oriented, reported higher levels of sportspersonship. In contrast, ego‐oriented players and players perceiving the motivational climate as predominantly performance‐oriented were more apt to report unsporting behaviour and less respect for social conventions, opponents, rules and officials. Moreover, interaction effects revealed that strongly ego‐oriented players showed significantly less respect for their opponents when operating in a weak rather than a strong mastery climate.