Michael Dahdal, Luigi Guidone, Ante Juric, Harry Kapsimalis, Andre Palet

The three main objectives of this current study are to examine the relationship between motivational climate and intrinsic motivation of basketball players; to observe any cross-cultural differences in motivational climate and intrinsic motivational climate of young basketball players and to evaluate if a climate of motivational mastery is conducive to intrinsic motivation. In observing cross-cultural differences the results and data of this study will be compared to that of the results and data in the study conducted by Goudas (1998). In addition the hypothesis of the study is that a perceived mastery orientated climate would correspond with greater intrinsic motivation, more specifically there would be increased enjoyment and therefore an increase in levels of effort produced.

The relationship between and the importance of motivational climate and Intrinsic motivation has been a much researched topic as seen by the abundance of literature available on the subject (Goudas, 1998). Motivation to perform as a sports person is vitally important in the success of that individual and or team. Therefore there has been a great concern with who and what optimally motivates sports athletes. This issue of maximising motivation has long been of interest in the sporting world and has as mentioned seen a number of researches and theoretical models related to the topic are developed (Seifriz, Duda & Chi, 1992).

Research on motivation has focused on how contextual factors promote different achievement goals. The basis of these studies are the social cognitive theories of achievement motivation (Goudas, 1998). The major goals individuals typically hod from motivational climate are that when individuals have mastery goals they infer success from personal improvement and effort. However, when a performance goal exists, criteria of normative comparisons are used for identifying success (Goudas, 1998; Kavussanu & Roberts, 1996; Seifriz et al., 1992).

The study conducted by Goudas (1998) examined the relationship between motivational climate with intrinsic motivation in regards to athletes with both high and low perceived competences. Goudas hypothesised that for athletes high in perceived competence, with perceptions of a motivational climate high in mastery and performance, would be positively related to intrinsic motivation.

For athletes of low competence he hypothesised that only perceptions of a motivational climate oriented toward high mastery would be related to enhanced intrinsic motivation. Goudas analysed 100 Greek male athletes who participated in a local league basketball competition. Overall Goudas hypothesis was not confirmed. The results demonstrated that athletes with different perceptions of perceived competence did not differ on intrinsic motivation. Results also indicated that perceived competence did not interact with those on motivational climate in influencing intrinsic motivation.

These results are congruent to the study conducted by Papaioannou (1997), that examined how perceived motivational climate in physical education is related to perceptions of teachers' differential treatment toward high and low achievers. It also related the motivation and anxiety of children to their high and low perceived competence during play as well as high and low ability within the children.

A total of 1393 students completed a number of measures. Results indicated that a climate of motivation is conducive to intrinsic motivation. There was evidence that a Mastery-orientated climate is positively related to the belief that success is dependant on trying hard, whereas a performance-orientated climate is associated with the belief that superior ability is essential for success in sport. Students who perceived the motivational climate to be mastery-orientated reported that they enjoyed playing sports more and also tried harder. Overall perceived competence had no effect on intrinsic motivation when the students adopted extremely high learning goals.

Similar to Goudas’ investigation many other researchers have examined the motivational climate of achievement settings. Seifriz et al. (1992) wished to develop a sport-specific measure of perceived motivational climate and to examine the relationship of this construct to intrinsic motivation and beliefs about the causes of success in the athletic domain. Their study also examined the degree to which intrinsic motivation and beliefs about the causes of success are predicted by perceptions of the situational goal structure and the dispositional goal perspective. Seifriz et al. (1992) gathered a sample of 105 male basketball players who were recruited from nine high school varsity basketball teams.

Results of the Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire revealed that both Performance and Mastery Climate sub-scales demonstrated acceptable internal consistency. Results also indicated that Perceptions of a Mastery-oriented climate on intrinsic motivation positively related to reported enjoyment and including that effort leads to achievement. In contrast results also indicated that the Performance-oriented climate suggest that the benefits of a Mastery-oriented environment can occur as significantly in a high performance focused structure as in a low performance focused goal structure. The results also demonstrated that dispositional goal orientation was the only significant predictor of players' self-reported exerted effort perceived competence, and attributional beliefs in basketball (Seifriz et al. 1992). Sport Psychologists have long studied the effects of motivation; and why people participate is the basis for many psychological studies.

The sample size included of 80 young male basketball players selected from Division 1 clubs in Sydney. The athletes consisted of an average age of 20.7 years with a range of 18 – 25.

After receiving permission from the coaches and the club director associated with each of the teams, we administered a multi-dimensional questionnaire in person prior to practice. The questionnaire was completed voluntary with informed consent to participate secured from each subject. Subjects were asked to answer all the items honestly and questions concerning and during the completion of the questionnaire were encouraged. The questionnaires were administered close to the completion of the competition season to ensure that a motivational climate had been established.

Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport. The subjects perceptions of the degree to which the players and the teams motivational climate was illustrative of a mastery and performance orientated climate was measured by the original Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire (PMCSQ). An initial pool of 40 items was generated by Seifriz et al. (1992) from relevant items contained in the original instrument. This was further reduced in this study to 15 items to comply with the validated shortened version utilized in the study by Goudas (1998). For this instrument the two predominant dimensions included the mastery (task-involving) sub-scales (e.g. "on this basketball team the only thing that matters is winning) and the performance (ego-involving) sub-scales (e.g. "on this basketball team the focus is to improve with each game") compromised of seven items each. The validity and reliability of the PMCSQ was presented in study of Seifriz et al. (1992). Instructions were delivered to the subjects and the importance of answering the questions in relation to only the team in which they are a member, at the present time was emphasized.

Intrinsic Motivation. The subjects involved in this study were also requested to reply to the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI). This instrument conjugates an overall level of intrinsic interest as well as assessing specific factors of intrinsic motivation. It consisted of nine items and contained three sub-scales (McAuley, Duncan, & Tummen, 1989) and was slightly reworded so subjects were able to respond specifically to the context of competition basketball. The IMI contained three sub-scales, which included the Effort/Importance sub-scale; e.g. "It is important to me to do well in training sessions." The Pressure/Tension sub-scale e.g. "Sometimes I feel very pressured when training with the team," and the Enjoyment/Interest sub-scale e.g. Training sessions are fun." There were three items used to measure perceived competence which were "I think I am pretty good at basketball", "compared with other players on my team I am one of the best," and "compared with other players of my age I am one of the best." The overall scale has been found to be high in internal reliability and adequate internal consistency has been demonstrated from each of the sub-scales (McAuley et al. 1989).

Each athlete responded to a 5 point Likert scale which consisted of 5 = Strongly agree, 4 = Agree, 3 = Neither agree nor disagree, 2 = Disagree and 1 = Strongly disagree. The scores of the respective items were added and then divided by the sum of the number of items to calculate a composite score for each scale.

Pearson correlation analysis was employed among the scores to determine the relationship between the six subscales of motivational climate and intrinsic motivation. From Table 1 it can be seen that as in previous studies (Goudas, 1998) perceptions of a mastery-orientated climate were not positively related to a performance climate. A significant negative correlation between the two further outlines their independence (r = -.51, p>.01). This can be further seen with significant negative correlation’s between mastery and perceived competence (r = -.25, p>.05) and significant positive correlation’s between performance and perceived competence (r = .34, p>.01). This demonstrated that subjects with high perceived competence are conducive to a climate that is performance orientated and not mastery orientated.

Ratings of enjoyment are seen to be highly significant and positively related to feelings of tension (r = .37, p>.01) and a significance was also found for ratings of effort which were also positively related to ratings of tension (r = .25, p>.05). A further highly significant positive correlation was also found between tension and scores of perceived competence (r = .31, p>.01).

To examine the effects of perceptions of motivational climate on intrinsic motivation, athletes were classified based on their scores on the mastery and performance subscales. Athletes that scored higher than the mean on the mastery climate subscale were categorised as high in mastery while those scoring below the mean were classified as low in mastery. Additionally, athletes that scored above the mean in the performance subscale were classified as high in performance and those scoring below the mean low in performance. Four groups of athletes were then created. Athletes in Group, 1 tended to perceive the motivational climate of their team as their teams as high in mastery and low in performance (n = 43). Group 2 athletes perceived their motivational climate as low in mastery and low in performance (n = 20). Those in Group 3 scored low in mastery and high in performance (n = 13) while Group 4 athletes were high in mastery and high in performance (n = 4). Table 2 is representative of the means for all measures of the groups.

To examine if there were any significant differences between the groups, a one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed with the four motivational climate groups as independent variables and the subscales of mastery, performance, enjoyment, effort, tension and perceived competence as dependent variables. The ANOVA indicated significant variance between motivational climate and perceived competence. Examination of the F tests showed that the scores for the four groups significantly varied for the mastery orientated climate (F_3,76 = 60.48, p<.01) and the performance orientated climate (F_3,76 = 59.99, p<.01). Scores for all four groups also demonstrated significant differences for perceived competence (F_3,76 = 3.06, p<.05).

A Scheffe follow up test indicated that for the mastery subscale Group 1 (high mastery-low performance) scored significantly lower than Groups 2 (low mastery-low performance) and 3 (low mastery-high performance), while Groups 2 and 3 scored significantly higher than Group 4 (high mastery-high performance). The performance subscale demonstrated that Group 1 scored significantly higher than Groups 2, 3 and 4. Group 2 also scored significantly higher than Groups 3 and 4. For the perceived competence subscale from intrinsic motivation, athletes in Group 1 scored significantly higher than Group 3.

One of the main aims of this study was to prove that perceived mastery orientated subjects would correspond with greater intrinsic motivation - that specifically, they would receive greater enjoyment from playing their sport and therefore produces more effort. This is consistent with the study conducted by Goudas (1998), which reported that athletes who displayed a perceived motivational climate as mastery orientated enjoyed training more and as a result tried harder. It was also assumed that athletes which perceived a performance based climate would record a negative association with intrinsic motivation. This was reported by Seifriz et al. (1992), who concluded that there was a non significant relationship between a performance orientated climate and high levels of intrinsic motivation.

The current study showed that Sydney basketball club players displayed a high amount of mastery orientated characteristics and demonstrated performance orientated characteristics to a lesser degree. It was also shown that there was a high degree of enjoyment, effort and perceived competence shown by the players results. However, the study conducted by Goudas (1998) showed that the means of all six subclass were higher than the current study.

The results indicated that perceptions of a performance orientated climate significantly and positively related to higher levels of perceived competence. Thus, players who see themselves as being highly competent, adopt goal orientated mentality which focuses on comparing performance with, and defeating others. This can be supported by Seifriz et al. (1992), who noted that a goal orientated climate was a predominant predictor of perceived competence in basketball. However, these findings are contradicted in a study conducted by Treasure (1997), which concluded that high mastery climates are conducive to high perceived ability. It should be taken into consideration that this study was performed on elementary school children.

The results also revealed that a high positive relationship between enjoyment levels and tension. This finding seems intuitive that as levels of enjoyment increase due to the stimulation of competition, a similar trend is seen in the levels of tension. Athletes, who displayed relative tension from participating during the basketball season, were also found to possess higher levels of effort. It could therefore be seen that athletes, who enjoyed playing and tried harder, displayed attributes significant with tension. Similar results were extracted from the findings of Goudas (1996), which also positively related effort with tension.

It was reported by Treasure (1997) that a significant level of perceived competence associated with an increased display of tension. This also resulted in the current study, which produced positive significant correlations between perceived competence and tension. Hence, greater levels of tension exist with players that focus on comparing their ability and defeating others.

There was a significant negative relationship produced by the findings between perceived mastery and performance orientated outlooks. This negative relationship demonstrates that there is no positive connections between mastery and performance climates therefore outlining their independence, and is seen to be consistent with the literature. The study conducted by Kavussanu & Roberts (1996), further demonstrates this, where positive relationships consisted between perceived competence and performance orientated climates, and negatively between mastery orientation and perceived competence. A mastery orientated climate also produced a negative significant relationship with perceived competence. This was not reinforced by the literature, and can be due to the possible differences of the standards between Australian first division basketball players and comparative overseas basketball players.

To examine the effect of perceptions of motivational climate on the indices of intrinsic motivation, athletes were divided into groups based on their scores for the Mastery and Performance subclass. Group one was representative of a high mastery and low performance orientated views (N=43), while Group two was of low mastery and low performance (N=20). Low mastery and high performance climates were placed in Group three (N=13), and the high mastery and high performance athletes resulted in Group four (N=4).

Analysis of variance was performed on these four climate groups using the six subclass of mastery, performance, enjoyment, effort, tension and perceived competence extracted from motivational climate and intrinsic motivation. The results displayed significant differences between the means of the groups in the performance and mastery subclass. Further significant difference between the means was also found for the perceived competence sub-scale.

A follow up test indicated that for the mastery sub-scale Group one representing high mastery and low performance, scored significantly different than Groups two which was low mastery and low performance and Group three representing low mastery and high performance. Groups two and three scored significantly different than Group four, which is high in mastery and high in performance. A similar trend evident for the performance sub-scale which showed that Groups one, two, three and four were all significantly different. For the perceived competence sub-scale from intrinsic motivation, athletes in Group 1 who are high in mastery and low in performance scored significantly different than Group 3 athletes that are low in mastery and high in performance. These results were not consistent with the literature (Goudas, 1998), which produced significant differences between effort and enjoyment.

The hypothesis that a perceived mastery orientated climate would correspond with greater intrinsic motivation, was not confirmed because no positive relationship was established between mastery and intrinsic motivation.

Suggested reasons for the differences in outcomes between this study, and other studies such as Goudas and Seifriz, are numerous. Differences may be due to the varying number of people included in the study, as well as the questions asked, the order, and the length of the questionnaires - the seriousness and honesty of these athletes in filling out the psychometric survey could have affected results. There may have also been differences in the first division standards between Australian and comparative overseas basketball players, as well as the age group and professional status of participants could have contributed to differences.

In addition, Seifriz’s study questioned their college players mid season, so a motivational climate was already established – the current study collected data at the commencement of the season so the motivational climate would be different. There was also may have been a difference in the experience of extracting appropriate results between the current study and others. And lastly, the fact that basketball is among the largest participation sports in Greece, which shows that the prestige level of basketball in Greece is much higher than Australia participation in the sport.

Cross cultural differences between the two studies indicate that the athletes sampled in Greece "perceived the motivational climate to be mastery orientated and reported that they enjoyed training more and they were trying harder." (Goudas, 1998). This study also found greater mean scores for all six subclass in motivational climate and intrinsic motivation.

These changes could be attributed to several different environmental factors between the two countries. These factors may include differences in moral standards and the values instilled in the athletes from a young age. Where coaches in Greece may encourage a certain standard of behaviour, Australia coaches may not. This may lead to the athletes having conflicting perceptions of motivational climate, inturn affecting their levels of intrinsic motivation.

Upon investigating the relationship between perceived motivational climate and intrinsic motivation among young basketball players in Australia, there were several significant conclusions drawn. Among the most notable was the inability to substantiate previous indications that a mastery orientated climate actually increased intrinsic motivation levels among young basketball players in Australia.

There was also evidence that suggested a performance oriented climate, fostered greater levels of perceived competence among the athletes. This indication suggested that those which perceived themselves as being highly competent, adopted a mentality associated with competitive outcomes, rather than skill improvement.

The results also revealed that as enjoyment levels rose in a competitive setting, so did the levels of tension. The tension levels were also seen to harbour greater levels of effort among the players. The evidence therefore, suggested that players that enjoyed themselves and played 'harder', displayed attributes relevant to tension. These results were supported by the literature (Goudas, 1998).

Differences in the competitive environment and the culture of the sport, in both Greece and Australia, could have both contributed to variance within the findings. A recommendation for future studies would be to emulate the competitive environment, being the level of competition of the athletes competed, between the two setting. There was also no demographic information collected from the participants and hence no demographic information was related to the findings. This could also have a significant effect on the results, due to lifestyle settings not being considered when relating the data to just culture. A greater sample size with a consistent setting over a longer period of time would have enhanced the validity of these findings. Restrictions in time and resources also hindered the desired extent of the research.

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Email correspondence: S.Burke@mackillop.acu.edu.au