Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore the potential mediating effect of achievement goals on perceived competence and return-to-sport outcomes among college athletes sustaining a sport injury. Altogether, 75 male and female college athletes from the United States who returned to sport after having missed competition for an average of 3 weeks due to injury, completed valid and reliable inventories measuring perceived competence, achievement goals, and return-to-sport outcomes. Results indicated that task-approach goals significantly mediated the relationship between perceived competence and a renewed sport perspective. These data suggest the importance of promoting competence beliefs and a task-oriented focus among athletes returning to sport following athletic injury. From a practical standpoint, clinicians can foster competence perceptions by integrating progressive physical tests assessing functionality and sport-specific skills/abilities. Furthermore, these data suggest that coaches, physical therapists, and significant others may do well to use language that orients injured athletes towards attaining success as opposed to avoiding failure, to emphasize effort, task completion, and correct form, and to avoid comments that compare athletes to others or to their preinjury standards of performance. From a theoretical standpoint, our mediation findings extend previous achievement goal research into the sport injury domain, further highlighting the importance of task-approach goals.
Highlights
Over the past 30 years, the profound psychological impact of injury on competitive athletes has been well documented [1,2,3,4]
The purpose of this study was to use Elliot’s hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation [25,46] to explore relationships between perceived competence, achievement goals, and return-to-competition outcomes among collegiate athletes who had returned to competition following a serious sport injury
Prospective participants needed to compete on a university team or club at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I-III level, or be a member of a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) team—the latter league representing a collection of small colleges and universities in North America
Summary
Over the past 30 years, the profound psychological impact of injury on competitive athletes has been well documented [1,2,3,4]. Returning athletes have reported positive appraisals about their upcoming return, for example, excitement about obtaining or surpassing pre-injury levels, improving skills, maintaining fitness levels, and preserving athletic identity [6,7,8]. These findings suggest a dichotomy of competence-based appraisals, whereby athletes attempting a return to competition are simultaneously motivated to avoid demonstrating incompetence (i.e., avoid a negative outcome) and to demonstrate competence (i.e., approach a positive outcome; [9]). Public Health 2020, 17, 2980; doi:10.3390/ijerph17092980 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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