Goal motives and multiple-goal striving in sport and academia: A person-centered investigation of goal motives and inter-goal relations

FEPSAC Position Statement: Athletes' dual careers in the European context

The aim of this FEPSAC Position Statement is to summarize current knowledge about athletes' dual careers (DCs) in the European context and propose recommendations for future DC research, practice, and policy. Inspired by the European Union's Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes (European Commission, 2012), researchers, practitioners, and policy makers collaborated over the last decade to create the European DC discourse as a context-informed and negotiated body of DC knowledge. In this paper, we proceed from analyzing this body of knowledge using recent review papers and European DC psychological research projects to formulating seven postulates summarizing DC research findings on factors influencing athletes in their striving for DC excellence. These factors include (1) context, (2) pathways and transitions, (3) challenges, (4) resources and coping, (5) support and empowerment, (6) student-athletes' mental health, and (7) DC development environments. In the final section, we acknowledge the contributions of European DC discourse in serving athletes in their pursuit of DC excellence and European DC culture. We also provide a critical discussion on DC knowledge gaps and, on behalf of FEPSAC, offer recommendations for DC research, practice, and policy in Europe.

Want-to, have-to, amotivation, grit, self-control, and tolerance ambiguity among university students: latent profile analysis

The current study adopted a person-centered approach to identify distinctive university students' profiles based on three variables (i.e., three academic motivations, grit, and self-control), regress multiple covariates (i.e., gender, age, study level, and college) on profile membership, and estimate differences on ambiguity tolerance across the estimated profiles. Data on 525 university students were modeled using Latent Profile Analysis. The findings found three latent profiles, which were: [1] Unmotivated and undisciplined students with low grit, [2] Moderately motivated and disciplined students with average grit, and [3] Highly motivated, gritty and disciplined students. Gender, study level, and college significantly predicted profile affiliation, identifying the characteristics of students within each profile. Significant differences were revealed in the ambiguity tolerance among the obtained profiles. These valuable results offer customized recommendations and prospective initiatives, strengthening the constructive effect of proper academic motivation types, purposeful grit, and intentional self-control (143 words).

The development of school and sports task values among adolescent athletes: The role of gender

Successfully integrating elite sports with education requires motivation to commit oneself to both domains. This study examines the development of and gender differences in adolescent athletes’ task values for school and sports across the upper secondary school years. A total of 391 adolescents (aged 15–16 at the beginning of the study) were followed four times during sports upper secondary school. The participating student athletes were recruited from six sports upper secondary schools in Finland, which offer equal competitive sport opportunities for both genders. The results showed that school- and sports- task values are strongly related to each other. Males valued school less than females at the beginning of upper secondary school, and this gender difference remained, and also strengthened across years. No gender differences in sports-related task values were found. The findings indicate that females may be more committed to integrating elite sports and education than males due to their higher valuing of school.

Predictive Strength of Contextual and Personal Variables in Soccer Players' Goal Orientations

Psychological variables, such as perceived motivational climate, goal orientation, self-determined motivation, and personality, have an influence on sports success performance. This study aimed to examine the relationships among a set of psychological variables (perceived motivational climate, goal orientation, self-determined motivation, and personality) in male and female footballers. Participants were 167 footballers (106 male, 61 female), aged 12 to 26, competing with clubs in the Spanish Football League. They all took four questionnaires aimed at evaluating motivational climate, goal orientations, self-determined motivation, and personality. The analyses of correlation and regression showed statistically significant relations among the variables. Neuroticism and psychoticism negatively relate to mastery motivational climate, the best predictor of self-determined motivation. It was concluded that contextual variables carry more weight in predicting goal orientations and self-determined motivation among participant footballers.

Goal Motives and Well-Being in Student-Athletes: A Person-Centered Approach

Using a person-centered approach, the aim of this study was to examine how student-athletes' motives for multiple-goal pursuit relate to indices of well- and ill-being. Student-athletes (N = 362) from British universities identified the most important sporting and academic goals that they were pursuing over the academic year. The participants rated their extrinsic, introjected, identified, and intrinsic goal motives for each goal and completed measures of well- and ill-being. Latent profile analysis revealed six distinct profiles of goal motives, with variations in both the strength of motives and the motivational quality. Follow-up analyses revealed between-profile differences for well- and ill-being; students with more optimal goal motive profiles reported higher and lower well- and ill-being, respectively, than those with less optimal goal motives. To experience well-being benefits when pursuing multiple goals, student-athletes should strive for their academic and sporting goals with high autonomous and low controlled goal motives.

Typologies of dual career in sport: A cluster analysis of identity and self-efficacy

Research has previously identified different approaches to a dual career (i.e., the simultaneous development of a vocational career alongside the athletic career): (a) educational/vocational pathway (i.e., a prioritisation of the vocational career), (b) a parallel dual career pathway (i.e., an equal focus on athletic and vocational career), and (c) a sporting pathway (i.e., a prioritisation of the athletic career). Yet, the identity and self-efficacy characteristics of these profiles require further investigation. To address this, the current study collected survey responses from 111 dual career athletes. The survey measured aspects of career identity, athletic identity and self-efficacy and results were analysed via a cluster analysis. The results showed three athlete profiles: (a) student-athletes showing an education or vocation prioritisation; (b) dual career athletes showing an equal balance between vocational career and sporting career; and (c) athlete students indicating a sport prioritisation. The results extend the current literature that understands dual career athletes as a heterogeneous group and establishes identity and self-efficacy as important factors in dual career pathways. This understanding also enables practitioners to take an individualistic approach to supporting dual career athletes.

"I don't need a flat tummy; I just want to run fast" - self-understanding and bodily identity of women in competitive and recreational sports

Background

Women who exercise intensively, whether competitive or recreational, devote a lot of time and energy into exercise, which requires high levels of ambition and motivation. The aim of the study is to investigate the self-understanding and bodily identity of different (competitive vs recreational) forms of exercise, and to investigate the role of important others (parents, siblings and social relations) for this self-understanding.

Methods

A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. An interactional psychodynamic framework informed the development of the interview questions focusing on the influence of their family, peers, and the meaning of exercise for their identity. Participants were recruited via local training centers and via the Danish Athletic Sports Association. A total of twenty highly physically active female athletes were interviewed, ten of whom participated in competitions (“competitve athletes”) and ten of whom did not (“recreational athletes”).

Results

Self-related and social similarities and differences between competitive athletes and recreational athletes were found. Recreational athletes had supportive but not ambitious parents and used sport to reinforce their bodily self-efficacy and identity, while competitive athletes had highly engaged parents, especially fathers, and competed to externalize their identities as athletes. Correspondingly, the meaning of exercise was the activity itself, for recreational athletes, while competition was the means to the end of achievement, for competitive athletes.

Conclusion

All athletes are affected and triggered by their biography and their environment. The biographical tradition of sport culture must be recognized as important for the engagement in different forms of physical activity in health and competition settings. If research can make the conflicts and relations of the self visible in sports culture, this could strengthen the recognition that the overall bodily well-being of athletes is important for women’s health.

Situational and Dispositional Factors that Predict Motivation: a Multilevel Study

This study aimed to test a multilevel mediation model which examined the relationship between the perceived motivational climate created by coaches at team level and motivational regulations towards sport at individual level, as mediated by individual goal orientations. 211 university athletes from 20 teams training in different types of sport completed a battery of instruments that measured the variables included in the model. The statistics significance level was .05. Results of the multilevel mediation model revealed that the task-involving climate at team level positively predicted individual task orientation (γ01 = .77, p .05). The results are in line with previous research that have focused in the study of motivational climate at individual level, but the present study make a novel contribution by providing the perspective of a multilevel mediation model and thereby clarifying the phenomenon at team level.