An investigation into the effect of motivational climate on participant enjoyment of children’s athletics sessions

I thought today for some light relief I would post my undergrad dissertation.  As I can actually read it and feel OK about it, i reckon its not too bad, it also got quite a good grade  It can be downloaded in full here.  Don't submit it as your own!  That's cheating!  Any questions email me!

The study was based on the using TARGET framework to influence motivational climate in children's coaching sessions, the abstract is below;

Grounded in Achievement Goal Theory (Maehr & Nicholls, 1980: Nicholls, 1984: Dweck, 1986: Ames, 1984) and with a Social Cognitive Perspective (Bandura, 1986) the study investigated the effects of motivational climate on enjoyment ratings of children's athletics sessions.   The rationale was to attempt to increase enjoyment by designing lesson plans which could utilize the reported benefits of a mastery motivational climate. It was postulated this may reduce drop out rates in children's physical activity classes.  The children n=16 (10 boys and 6 girls) mean age 9.87 took part in two sessions.  The researcher attempted to manipulate the motivational climate of the sessions using the TARGET framework, (Ames, 1992: Epstein, 1989) to design sessions with a mastery or performance motivational climate.  The enjoyment rating of the children was measured after each session.  The results indicated that the there was no significant difference in the enjoyment score rating of the two sessions.








Ames, C. (1992). Classrooms: Goals, structures, and student motivation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84 (3), 261-271 DOI: 10.1037//0022-0663.84.3.261