Motivational climate, achievement goals and metacognitive activity in physical education and exercise involvement in out-of-school settings

Abstract

Objectives This study examined the relationship between achievement goals, motivation climate, frequency of sport and exercise involvement and students' metacognitive processes in physical education. Design One sample of questionnaire data. Methods Participants were 782 physical education pupils (338 male, 416 female, 28 did not provide gender) of public elementary ( n=182), junior high school ( n=365) and senior high school ( n=235), who completed self-reports of task and ego orientation, motivational climate, metacognition, effort and enjoyment in physical education and sport and exercise behavior in out-of-school settings. Results Both task-orientation and the perception of a mastery environment had a unique contribution in the explanation of students' metacognitive activity. There was also evidence that metacognition has a mediating role between mastery climate and task orientation on the one hand and frequency of sport and exercise involvement on the other. Conclusions These findings underscore the importance of task orientation and mastery climate for the development of metacognition in physical education. Moreover, they underline the necessity of research on the causal relationship between metacognition and sport involvement.