Achievement Goal Theory Of Athletes’ Motivation

According to Peters (2008), this theory has a significance with the execution or adapting in sport. It includesachievement goal, attribution, self-adequacy, self-assurance theories, and concisely, expectancy-value theory for itspotential relevance to athletes. This examines suggestions for therapists and prescribes therapeutic methodologies. Itdepicts three therapeutic procedures regularly used to expand an athlete’s motivation: objective setting, cognitiverestructuring, and symbolism. It also addresses certain therapeutic issues to athletes, specifically in depicting intakeinterviews, moral issues, competency in sport psychology, and affirmation for sport psychologists.

Achievement Goal Theory

This study is generally anchored to the Achievement Goal Theory wherein this was theorized by Nicholls (1984)which describes the interaction of one’s perceived ability and two goal orientations, known as “task” and “ego,” thatan athlete employs when setting goals. Lachman (2014) stated that there are factors to consider under this theorywhich are goal orientations, perceived competence and achievement behavior. These goal-orientations are whatathletes employ when playing their sport (Lachman, 2014).

Athletes who utilize a task goal-orientation focus ontheir effort, as well as seek skill development, improvement, and task mastery (Smoll, Smith, & Cumming, 2007). Thus, success is relative to the athlete’s own performance. Lachman (2014) added that Perceived competence has aneffect on an individual’s achievement behavior. The individual’s goal orientations reflect the way they interpret theirsuccess (Nicholls, 1984).

According to Amorose (2003), athletes believed their head coach was the greatest influencer of perceptions ofcompetence or confidence more so than any other variable. Student-athletes should be oriented on the possibility ofcareer prospects and job orientation of academic courses as a corrective measure for those student athletes thatbecome uninterested with regards to their academic performances. Fortes, Rodrigues, and Tchantchane (2010) havestated that students become more motivated to improve their academic performances when they realize that theiracademic courses improve career prospects. Having realized that their academic courses improve career prospects,they made the athletic phase as their inspiration to work harder in academics to show proof that most athletesactually enjoy academics. The Achievement Goal Theory is applicable and related to the sub topic, athletic motivation. Stated by Edwards(1984), student athletes needs to be informed with their possible career options and orientation including studentathletes that lost interest with regards to their acafemic performances. On thperformances. Fortes, Rodrigues, and Tchantchane (2010) have stated that students become more motivated toimprove their academic performances when they realize that their academic courses improve career prospects. Athletes are overwhelmed by the demands of the athletic career that take their concentration and energy that resultedfor not having to enough time to work and pass projects on time. On the contrary, there are still numerous studentathletesthat have graduated with flying colors. Having realized that their academic courses improve careerprospects, they made the athletic phase as their inspiration to work harder in academics to show proof that mostathletes actually enjoy academics.

Academic Achievement and Performance

Student-athletes were said to be more committed to athletics than academics so they believe that they are notacademically gifted and this resulted to prejudices that student-athletes were facing that causes them to fall intocommon stereotypes (Aries et al. , 2004). Due to this belief, Schneider, Ross, and Fisher (2010) said that student-athletes and advisors place student-athletes ineasier courses with professors who are known to be athlete friendly to ensure eligibility, this is known as theacademic clustering. A research conducted by Marsh and Kleitman (2002) found that students school-sponsored athletic participation orextracurricular school activities have a value to the students. If students’ participation levels increase, their academicachievement also increase as well (Marsh & Kleitman, 2002). On the other hand, Marsh and Kleitman’s (2002)study also showed that in high levels of involvement, a student would begin to see a drop in their academicachievement. All in all, this means that there were positive results for low and moderate participation in school-sponsored athleticparticipation, but this positive connection leveled off and then began to drop as students‘ participation levelscontinued to rise into the extremes (Marsh & Kleitman, 2002).

Safety and Wellbeing of Athletes

Every student athlete has their own reasons to participate in extra curricular activities specifically sports. Accordingto Smith & Patterson (2012), there are benefits in participating in physical activity or sports. First, physicalactivities develop the level of cardiovascular fitness, then increases the muscle endurance of the athlete. Second,mental and social health will benefit from this since it helps them to build relationships, their skills andcompetencies will develop and of course, sports gives meaning and purpose in the life on an athlete. On the otherhand, for younger athletes, it is mentioned that regular exercise influences cognitive development and learning atschool. Student-Athlete’s wellbeing were greatly affected by their mental toughness and psychological well-being whereinpsychological wellbeing of a student-athletes is described as the amalgamation of self-esteem, perceived selfefficacy,positive affect and dispositional optimism (Golby & Wood, 2016). Golby and Wood (2016) addedthat if mental toughness of a student-athlete significantly improve in addition to self-efficacy, self-esteem andpositive affect, then mental toughness and positive psychological construct fosters positive psychologicalstateswhich is helpful in the wellbeing of student-athletes. This was supported by Cheng (2014) which states thatstudent-athlete’s recreation sport participation has a positive impact on their time management disposition, positiveemotions, and wellbeing.

Also, according to Cheng (2014) the study also observed that students’ genders and theirchoices of whether to participate in sport clubs were the important variables influencing their sport participation,time management disposition, positive emotions, and wellbeing. Osamende (2016) said that motivation is importantand essential to an athlete because it has an influence on their performance and it prepares them physically,mentally, emotionally. He also added that motivation helps athletes in several ways such as giving them a reason toachieve their goals, to survive the obstacles in sports, athletes have the determination to be successful and etc. (Osamende, 2016). Osamende (2016) also proved that when athletes were properly motivated, it enabled them toperform better in sports, improved their concentration, confidence, self-control, focus and mental readiness. On theother hand, which is a negative effect on student-athletes wellbeing, anxiety also has an effect on the performance level of athletes which showed that the more experiences an athlete has, the tendency to experience pre-gameanxiety is lower compared to those who less experienced athletes (Z. Khan, Haider, Ahmad, & S. Khan, 2011). It is important to know the safety of athletes in participating in sports, especially when it comes to injuries. Based onGreen (2001), an injury is a traumatic event for athletes. This event may affect their emotions, mentality, self esteemand etc. Self-esteem is one of the potential consequences of injuries and it is more likely to go down. Athletesexperiencing an injury may experience depression, anxiety and fear.

Student-Athletes’ Benefits

Every student-athletes is given academic benefits by their school and According to Yu (2011), scholarships are oftenrewarded to student-athletes so there are many different socioeconomic classes represented. Scholarships are thefirst thing that a school or universities will offer to all of their athletes because apart from the benefits given, studentathletes make decisions on where to attend depending on the academic considerations given to them by theuniversities. Another factor to take into consideration is the budget that will be provided for each athlete, which includes; DailyMeals, Allowance, Living Quarters, Athletic Gear, Health Care and Maintenance and other inclusions that a schoolmay offer. Because according to Hollis (2001), budget is the instrument measured institutional support in the formof budgetary support from the university or college to the student-athlete support service program. These benefits are given to them as a reward for the achievements that they have bagged for in the name of theirschools. Having to train and study at the same time, the roles of the athletes are both physically and mentally tiringthat’s why these benefits can also add to their motivation in pursuing the sports they are competing. According toobservations, a school that has great benefits or incentives to student-athletes are the ones who produce well-shapedathletes who bring prestigious awards to their schools or universities.

Coaches Motivation

This study focuses on the influence of the bond between the coach and the athlete and how it can alter the athlete'sperformance and motivation as well. According to Mageau and Vallerand (2003), the coach-athlete relationship isone of the most crucial determinants of an athlete’s level of motivation. Both basic motivation, which ascends fromdoing a certain activity for personal pleasure and satisfaction, and extrinsic motivation, which ascends from externaloutcomes, can be significantly affected by coaching behaviors. Amorose and Horn (2001) found strong support forthe relationship between student-athletes’ opinions of their coaches’ behavior and intrinsic motivation, and morespecifically coaches who were perceived to provide higher levels of positive feedback and training-instruction whilepracticing a democratic leadership style produced higher intrinsic motivation levels in their athletes. Coaches are often encouraged to consider their athletes’ level of competition, whether it be recreational, high school,or professional, when determining what motivational strategies are best suited to affect motivation and performance.

According to Roberts (1993) motivation is a combination of “personality factors, social variables, and/or cognitionsthat are assumed to come into play when a person undertakes a task at which he or she is evaluated, enters into acompetition with others, or attempts to attain some standard of excellence”Therefore, since coaches often associate motivation with effort, it is important to consider athletes’ regulation overtheir own achievement striving potential this examined the relationship between student evaluations of coachingcharacteristics, specifically likeability and technical expertise, student-athlete motivation, perceived stress, skill, andachievement striving. Specifically, it was hypothesized coaching likeability would positively relate to studentathletes’ motivation and would negatively relate to perceived stress. It was hypothesized that coaching technicalexpertise would be positively related specific motivational variables such as competence, fitness, student-athletic,and career athletic motivation. In addition, it was proposed that coach likeability and technical expertise wouldmoderate the relationship between motivation and both perceived stress and self-reported skillBased from studies, athletes are uninterested in their academic performances because of their active participation insports. It shows that they have entered college to solely pursue their athletic careers rather than academic careers. This resulted to most student-athletes having poor academic grades or GPA and having lower chances of graduating(Adler & Adler, 1985).

According to Edwards (1984), athletes have been experiencing lack of sleep and drained energy for they have towake up earlier than non-athlete students do. They have to attend classes then go back into their training which takes3 or more hours. These shows that fatigue and restricted time for studying have caused many students to give up ontheir academic careers. Student-athletes should be oriented on the possibility of career prospects and job orientation of academic courses asa corrective measure for those student athletes that become uninterested with regards to their academicperformances. Fortes, Rodrigues, and Tchantchane (2010) have stated that students become more motivated toimprove their academic performances when they realize that their academic courses improve career prospects. Athletes are overwhelmed by the demands of the athletic career that take their concentration and energy that resultedfor not having to enough time to work and pass projects on time. On the contrary, there are still numerous studentathletesthat have graduated with flying colors. Having realized that their academic courses improve careerprospects, they made the athletic phase as their inspiration to work harder in academics to show proof that mostathletes actually enjoy academics.