Basic Needs Satisfaction and Conscious Motives for Sports Activities of Juniors

Abstract

Athletic motivation is actively studied in the sports psychology. The study of the juniors’ motivation is crucial for exploring the reasons to quit the sport, the fac-tors that reduce an athlete’s productivity, the principles of building support pro-grams for young athletes. The purpose of the study was to study the basic needs satisfaction and the hierarchy of young athlete conscious motives. The study involved juniors, in the amount of 133 people aged 13-16 years (M=15.1; SD=1.6; 59.4% men). The following methods were used: the essay “Why I came into sports”, “Method of paired comparisons” by V.V. Skvortsov (modified by I.A. Akindinova), as well as statistical methods (descriptive statistics, W - Kendall, Chi-squared test, Kruskal-Wallis H - test). Personal, professional and status conscious motives were found out to form a complex motivation for sports activities. Conscious motives for sports activities differ among juniors in various sports. The least satisfied needs are those for acceptance needs and self-expression. The type of sport does not determine the satisfaction of the junior needs. The prospect of the study is to create a model of motivation for a young athlete. The results can be used in the activities of sports institutions.