| Abstrakt: |
This paper is a preliminary investigation into the motivational climate of competitive gymnastics classes. Motivational climate can be described as the gymnast's relatively persistent collective perceptions of the achievement goal structure of their class. Twenty-eight male and 180 female competitive gymnasts from six metropolitan and four regional competitive gymnastics clubs in Queensland, Australia were surveyed with a draft of the Sports Class Environment Scale (SCES). Using the revised SCES subscales as dependent variables, multivariate analyses of variance were conducted to compare club type, gender, and competitive level. The low training hours and the high training hours classes were significantly different in their perceptions of the Ego Involvement of their motivational climate (p<0.01). Male gymnasts were significantly different to female gymnasts in perceptions of Ego Involvement (p<0.01), Affiliation (p<0.01) and Effort, Order & Organization (p<0.01) aspects of their class climates. This study demonstrates the potential value of creating class motivational climates high in both task mastery (Task Involvement) and comparative competence (Ego Involvement) for competitive gymnastics clubs. Because motivational climate is easier to manipulate than individual achievement goal dispositions, it is an important variable that should be better understood, described, developed, and manipulated by gymnastic coaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
