Effects of a Motivational Climate on Psychological Needs Satisfaction, Motivation and Commitment in Teen Handball Players.

Marianna Alesi,Antonio Granero-Gallegos,Manuel Gómez-López,Carla Chicau Borrego,Diogo Monteiro

doi:10.3390/ijerph16152702

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of the motivational climate created by the coach and perceived by a group of young high-performance handball players on their sport motivation, self-determination, sport psychological needs and sport commitment. The study participants were 479 young handball players. The age range was 16–17 years old. Players were administered a battery composed of a Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire, Sport Motivation Scale, the Basic Psychological Needs in Exercise Scale and Sport Commitment Questionnaire to measure the above-mentioned theoretical constructs. Results showed that the handball players showed high levels of a task-involving climate, of basic psychological needs satisfaction and of self-determined motivation and commitment. Higher levels of basic psychological needs such as autonomy and competence were associated with a higher task-involving climate, self-determined index and sport commitment (task-involving climate–basic psychological needs (β = 0.55; 95% IC 0.387/0.682; p = 0.001); Ego-involving climate–basic psychological needs (β = 0.06; 95% IC −0.069/0.181; p = 0.387); Basic psychological needs–self-determined index (β = 0.48; 95% IC 0.376/0.571; p = 0.001); Self-determined index–commitment (β = 0.58; 95% IC 0.488/0.663; p = 0.001). The obtained model showed that basic psychological needs mediated the association between a task-involving climate and self-determination, and self-determination mediated the association between basic psychological needs satisfaction and commitment.

Highlights

Following the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) [1] and the Achievement Goal Theory (AGT) [2,3], much research has underlined psychological components as a fundamental condition that contributes to athletes’ performance
Sport commitment is a crucial variable to be considered in the interplay between the coach’s motivational climate and the athletes’ motivational disposition. Based on these theoretical premises, the aim of the current study is examine the effects of the motivational climate created by the coach and perceived by a group of young high-performance handball players on their sport motivation, self-determination, sport psychological needs such as autonomy, competence and relatedness, and sport commitment
We performed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the factorial structure of each scale

Summary

Introduction

Following the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) [1] and the Achievement Goal Theory (AGT) [2,3], much research has underlined psychological components as a fundamental condition that contributes to athletes’ performance. Sport success is the result of a complex interplay between an athlete’s technical skills, physical condition and adaptive motivational disposition. In detail, this disposition is composed of positive self-esteem and perception of competence, effort attribution style, fitting representation. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 2702; doi:10.3390/ijerph16152702 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion