Enjoyment and anxiety in Finnish physical education – achievement goals and self-determination perspectives

Abstract

Approach: The sample of the study included 1148 (565 boys and 583 girls, Mage = 11.27, SD = .32) Grade 5 Finnish PE students who completed a battery of questionnaires including motivational climate, basic psychological needs satisfaction, motivational regulations, goal orientations, perceived competence, enjoyment, and anxiety towards PE. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate two proposed motivational sequences. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to predict students’ enjoyment and anxiety in physical education (PE) through the motivational sequences proposed by self-determination and achievement goal theories. Results: SEM demonstrated a good model fit to the data for the self-determination motivational sequence (χ2 (11) = 13.33, P = 0.27; CFI = 0.99; TLI = 0.99; RMSEA = 0.01). More specifically, the three basic psychological needs and intrinsic motivation were positively linked to enjoyment, whereas amotivation was negatively linked. Furthermore, need for competence and relatedness were negatively linked to anxiety, whereas introjected regulation and amotivation were positively linked to anxiety. Subsequently, the achievement goals model fitted the data well: χ2 (19) = 29.59, P = 0.06; CFI = .99; TLI = 0.99; RMSEA = 0.03. Task-involving climate was positively, and ego-involving climate negatively, associated with enjoyment. Additionally, egoinvolving climate was positively linked to anxiety. The SEM also revealed an indirect positive association from task-involving climate via task orientation to enjoyment. Conclusions: Results of this study demonstrate that satisfaction of basic psychological needs and perception of task-involving motivational climate are crucial for positive affect in PE.