Cognitive and Affective Concomitants of Task and Ego Goal Orientations during the Middle School Years

Abstract

Recent research with young adolescents (Duda, Fox, Biddle, & Armstrong, 1992) and with older adolescents (Duda, 1989) has reported a conceptually coherent relationship between individuals' achievement goal orientations and their beliefs about competitive sport. The purpose of the present study was to extend this line of research and examine the cognitive and affective concomitants of task and ego goal orientations (Nicholls, 1980, 1984, 1989) at three different ages during adolescence. Specifically, beliefs about the purposes of sport, causes of success, and satisfaction in sport were examined. A robust pattern of results emerged from canonical correlation procedures. For all three ages, a task orientation was related to prosocial and adaptive achievement beliefs about sport participation. In contrast, an ego orientation was related to negative social aspects and maladaptive achievement beliefs about sport involvement. The results suggest that a task orientation is likely to facilitate adaptive cognitive and affective patterns in competitive sport during adolescence.