Effects of Manipulating the Motivational Climate in Physical Education Lessons

This study investigated the effects of manipulating the motivational climate in athletics lessons to be mastery oriented on pupils' perceptions of the motivational climate, achievement goal orientations and cognitive and affective responses. A total of 153 male and female secondary school pupils were involved in the study over a period of seven weeks. Eighty pupils participated in the mastery intervention programme (experimental group) which implemented Epstein's (1989) TARGET teaching structures, while 73 pupils experienced the existing athletics teaching programme (control group). The pupils completed a pre- and post-intervention survey assessing their achievement goal orientations, beliefs about the causes of success, task choice, satisfaction, boredom and attitude towards athletics. Additionally the post-intervention survey assessed the pupils' perceptions of the motivational climate. Results reveale pupils' perceptions of a mastery climate and significant increases in their task orientation, preference for challenging tasks, satisfaction and positive attitude as a result of experiencing the mastery programme. These findings are discussed with regard to the implications for physical educators.