sport motivation essay

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Article contents

Motivation in sport and performance.

• Glyn C. Roberts , Glyn C. Roberts Department of Coaching and Psychology, Norwegian School of Sport Science
• Christina G. L. Nerstad Christina G. L. Nerstad Department of Public Administration and Leadership, Oslo Metropolitan University
•  and  P. Nicolas Lemyre P. Nicolas Lemyre Department of Coaching and Psychology, Norwegian School of Sport Science
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.150
• Published online: 30 July 2018

Motivation is the largest single topic in psychology, with at least 32 theories that attempt to explain why people are or are not motivated to achieve. Within sport psychology research, there are a plethora of techniques of how to increase and sustain motivation (strategies to enhance agency beliefs, self-regulation, goal setting, and others). However, when explaining the conceptual undergirding of motivation in sport, the why of motivation, two theories predominate: Achievement Goal Theory (AGT) and Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Both theories predict the same outcomes, such as increased achievement striving, sustained behavior change, and perceptions of well-being, but they differ in why those outcomes occur. AGT assumes that individuals cognitively evaluate the competence demands and meaningfulness of the activity, and that those perceptions govern behavior. SDT assumes that individuals are driven by three basic needs, competence, autonomy, and relatedness, and the satisfaction of those needs govern behavior. The following discusses both theories and concludes that each has their strengths and weaknesses.

• achievement orientations
• basic needs
• motivational climate
• behavior change
• Achievement Goal Theory
• Self-Determination Theory

Introduction

We can never have equality of achievement, but we can have equality of motivation : That was the mission of John Nicholls ( 1979 ). His goal was “equality of optimal motivation” (p. 1071) so that everyone should achieve the best that is possible for him or her to fulfill their potential. This enshrines the conceptual basis of enhancing motivation for sustained behavior change evident in the extant literature. For optimal motivation, it is argued that strategies need to be developed where individuals adopt and sustain achievement striving. Whether it is business leaders trying to motivate people in the workplace, the health industry trying to halt the rise in childhood obesity and sedentary lifestyles, parents and teachers bemoaning the study habits of children and adolescents, or coaches and administrators within the sport and performance communities wondering how to get better “results,” all are concerned with the issue of sustained motivated behavior.

How do we develop motivation for sustained striving? If we take our cues from everyday life, then it may be associated with arousal, such as the “motivational” tirades of coaches in the locker room. Former players of Manchester United Football Club have often remarked about the halftime locker room “hairdryer treatment” talks of the legendary coach of Manchester United Sir Alex Ferguson. Some believe it is a measure of confidence, a winning attitude that motivates one to better performance. Some believe it is a simple matter of positive thinking: Believe and you will achieve! Some believe it is a personal entity or is genetically endowed; you either “have it, or not”! However, these beliefs do not begin to capture the complexity and richness of contemporary motivational theory and research.

The term motivation is a very overused and vague term, especially in the “trenches”—the classroom, the gymnasium, the exercise room, the playing fields, the sport arenas, the workplace, etc. (e.g., Ford, 1992 ; Roberts, 2012 ; Roberts, Treasure, & Conroy, 2007 ). We have former successful sports stars, politicians, businesspeople who earn “big bucks” on the lecture circuit giving what are termed “motivational talks”! We have sports commentators and business correspondents who argue that the successful are more motivated to achieve than the unsuccessful. But their definitions and understanding of what motivation is differs. Even among motivation researchers, motivation is defined broadly by some, and narrowly by others, so that the term is useless as an organizing construct. Ford ( 1992 ) has argued that there are at least 32 theories of motivation that have their own definitions and explanations of the construct. In contemporary motivation research, because the term is so vague, the solution has been to abandon the term and use descriptions of cognitive processes such as self-regulation or other self-systems that affect motivational processes. However, the important assumption agreed to by most contemporary theorists is that motivation is not an entity but is a process (e.g., Maehr & Braskamp, 1986 ). Typically, motivation is the process that influences the initiation, direction, magnitude, perseverance, continuation, and quality of goal-directed behavior (Maehr & Zusho, 2009 ). To understand motivation, we must attempt to understand the process of motivation and the constructs that drive the process and how they apply to sustained behavior change.

The history of motivation theory has been the search for the overarching theory, and, as such, it was assumed that when that theory evolved, a whole range of achievement behaviors would not only be better understood, but intervention opportunities would also present themselves (Roberts, 1992 , 2012 ). Despite the efforts of many, and the arguments of some (e.g., Bandura, 1986 ), this overarching theory remains elusive and certainly not within our grasp yet. One of the reasons is that there is not universal agreement on how the psyche works to foster motivation. However, the search continues. There is excellent work in both sport and other achievement arenas that are ongoing in search of theoretical concepts and processes to understand and enhance achievement behaviors.

The study of motivation and its effect on achievement behavior is the investigation of the energization, direction, and regulation of behavior. Thus, while some avenues of research that describe the direction and/or the regulation of behavior without specifying why the behavior is energized are not “true” motivational theories, even though they may describe achievement behavior very well. Goal setting is such a case in sport and performance (e.g., Locke & Latham, 1985 ). Goal setting specifies the direction and regulation of achievement behavior, but to date there is no sufficient psychological explanation to explain why behavior from a goal-setting perspective is initiated (Hall & Kerr, 2001 ). Motivation theories are predicated upon a set of assumptions about individuals and about the factors that give impetus to achievement behavior (Roberts, 1992 ). Motivation theories ask why .

Typically, in the research literature pertaining to motivation in sport and performance, motivation theories refer to needs, dispositions, social variables, and/or cognitions that come into play when a person undertakes a task at which he or she is evaluated, enters into competition with others, or attempts to attain some standard of excellence. At such times, the individual is assumed to be responsible for the outcome of the task and that some level of challenge is inherent in the task. Moreover, such circumstances are assumed to facilitate various needs, motivational dispositions, and/or cognitive assessments that affect achievement striving. Specifically, it has been hypothesized that the energizing constructs of achievement behavior are basic needs, approach and/or avoidance dispositions, expectancies, incentive values of success and failure, and/or cognitive assessments of what it takes to achieve success and/or avoid failure.

Understanding the Process of Motivation

Motivation theories are on a continuum ranging from deterministic to mechanistic to organismic to cognitive (for a more extensive treatment of motivation theories, see Ford, 1992 ). Deterministic and mechanistic theories view humans as being passive, at least partially, and driven by psychological needs and/or drives. Organismic theories include innate needs but also recognize that a dialectic occurs between the organism and the social context. Social cognitive theories view humans as being active and initiating action through subjective interpretation of the achievement context. When motivation matters, theoretical models governing motivation and achievement behavior abound. There is no shortage of theories! However, since the late 1970s, theories that encompass social cognitive dynamics have dominated the research literature.

Weiner ( 1972 ) signaled the beginning of the cognitive revolution by arguing that individuals who were high or low in motivation were likely to think differently about why success and failure occurred. The notion that thoughts, rather than needs or drives, were the critical variables transformed the study of motivation. As Harwood, Spray, and Keegan ( 2008 ) stated, the development of social cognitive theories has been a watershed for our understanding of sport achievement behavior. Harwood and colleagues continue to state that achievement goal theory, in particular, has “triggered a penetrating wave of research into the interpersonal and environmental influences on athlete behavior in achievement settings” (p. 158). The majority of motivation research in sport performance contexts over the past 40 years has adopted a social cognitive approach, at least partially. The most popular contemporary theories in sport psychology tend to be based on organismic (e.g., Self-Determination theory, Deci & Ryan, 1985 ; Hierarchical goal model, Elliot, 1999 ) or social cognitive criteria (e.g., Achievement Goal Theory, Nicholls, 1989 ) and are based on the more dynamic and sophisticated conceptions that assume the human is an active participant in decision making and in planning achievement.

We have confined our review to include only the most important theories for sport and performance. It may be debated whether we have included all of the important theories. However, even a cursory review of the motivation literature in sport immediately reveals that the most cited theories are Achievement Goal Theory (e.g., Dweck, 2006 ; Nicholls, 1989 ) and Self-Determination Theory (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 1985 ). These are the most used theories in the sport and performance arena. Thus, for sport performance, we take a critical eye to Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (e.g., Ntoumanis, 2012 ; Standage & Ryan, 2012 ) and Achievement Goal Theory (AGT) (e.g., Duda, 2001 ; Roberts, 2001 , 2012 ) and their principal advocates.

We will discuss each theory in turn and identify the process of motivation within each, and we will briefly cite the research in sport and performance to support the basic tenets and findings. Then we will discuss the similarities and differences of each theory and conclude with a series of suggestions for future research in sport and performance contexts.

The Theories

First, we will discuss AGT in its various guises.

Achievement Goal Theory and Research

The history and development of AGT in sport has been reviewed in several recent publications (e.g., Duda, 2005 ; Duda & Hall, 2001 ; Harwood et al., 2008 ; Lochbaum, Kazak Cetinkalp, Graham, Wright, & Zazo, 2016 ; Roberts, 2012 ; Roberts Treasure, & Conroy, 2007 ). We will not exhaustively review the literature in the present article, rather we will focus on identifying key constructs, tenets, and constraints to the theory; review the basic conceptual infrastructure and empirical support; and present recent proposals for expanding and/or restructuring the approach, with some rebuttals and counterpoints! AGT is a social cognitive theory that assumes that the individual is an intentional, rational, goal-directed organism and that achievement goals govern achievement beliefs and guide subsequent decision making and behavior in achievement contexts. It is these goals that reflect the purposes of achievement striving. Once adopted, the achievement goal determines the integrated pattern of beliefs that energize approach and avoid strategies, the differing engagement levels, and the differing responses to achievement outcomes. Goals are what give an activity purpose or meaning (Kaplan & Maehr, 2007 ; Maehr & Nicholls, 1980 ). By recognizing the importance of the meaning of behavior, it becomes clear that there may be multiple goals of action, not one (Maehr & Braskamp, 1986 ). Thus, an individual’s investment of personal resources such as effort, talent, and time in an activity is dependent on the achievement goal of the individual.

The overall goal of action in AGT, thereby becoming the conceptual energizing force, is the desire to develop and demonstrate competence and to avoid demonstrating incompetence in an achievement context (Nicholls, 1984 ). However, competence has more than one meaning. Based on previous research on learned helplessness (Dweck, 1975 ), cooperation/competition (Ames, 1984 ), and his own work on children’s understanding of the concepts of effort and ability ( 1976 ), Nicholls’s conceptual contribution was to argue that more than one conception of ability exists, and that achievement goals and behavior may differ depending on the conception of ability held by the person. Two conceptions of ability (at least) manifest themselves in achievement contexts, namely an undifferentiated concept of ability , where ability and effort are not differentiated by the individual; and a differentiated concept of ability , where ability and effort are differentiated (Nicholls, 1984 , 1989 ).

Nicholls ( 1978 , 1989 ) argued that children originally possess an undifferentiated conception of ability and associate ability with learning through effort so that the more effort one puts forth, the more learning (and ability) one achieves. Following a series of experiments, Nicholls ( 1978 ; Nicholls & Miller, 1983 , 1984 ) determined that by the age of 12, children are able to differentiate luck, task difficulty, and effort from ability, enabling a differentiated perspective. When utilizing this differentiated perspective, children begin to see ability as capacity and that the demonstration of competence involves outperforming others. In terms of effort, high ability is inferred when outperforming others and expending equal or less effort or performing equal to others while expending less effort.

An individual will approach a task or activity with certain goals of action reflecting their personal perceptions and beliefs about the form of ability they wish to demonstrate (Nicholls, 1984 , 1989 ). They interpret their performance in terms of these perceptions and beliefs and form a personal theory of achievement at the activity (Nicholls, 1989 ) that reflects the individual’s perception of how things work in achievement situations. The adopted personal theory of achievement (Dweck, 2006 , terms this as an implicit person theory ) affects one’s beliefs about how to achieve success and avoid failure at the activity. Therefore, based on their personal theory of achievement, people will differ in which of the conceptions of ability and criteria of success and failure they use.

State of Involvement

The two conceptions of ability thereby become the source of the criteria by which individuals assess success and failure. The goals of action are to meet the criteria. Nicholls ( 1989 ) identifies achievement behavior utilizing the undifferentiated conception of ability as being task involved and achievement behavior utilizing the differentiated conception of ability as being ego involved .

When task involved, the goal of action is to develop mastery, improvement, or learning; and the demonstration of ability is self-referenced, internal, and autonomous. Success is realized when mastery or improvement is attained. Perceived ability becomes less relevant as the individual is trying to demonstrate or develop mastery at the task rather than demonstrate normative ability. The achievement behaviors are adaptive in that the individual is more likely to persist in the face of failure, to exert effort, select challenging tasks, and be intrinsically interested in the task (e.g., Duda & Hall, 2001 ; Nicholls, 1989 ; Roberts, 2012 ).

When ego involved, the goal of action is to demonstrate ability relative to others, or to outperform others, making ability other referenced and external. Success is realized when the performance of others is exceeded, especially when expending less effort (Nicholls, 1984 , 1989 ). Perceived ability is relevant as the individual is trying to demonstrate normative ability, or avoid demonstrating inability, to determine how his/her ability fares with comparative others. These people seek competitive contests and want to demonstrate superiority. When perceived ability is high, demonstrating high-normative ability is likely; therefore, the individual is motivated to persist and demonstrate that competence to pertinent others. The ego-involved person is inclined to use the least amount of effort to realize the goal of action (Nicholls, 1989 ). If the perception of ability is low, then the individual recognizes that ability is unlikely to be demonstrated, and he/she manifests maladaptive achievement behaviors because he/she wishes to avoid demonstrating incompetence (Nicholls, 1989 ). Maladaptive behaviors are avoiding the task; avoiding challenge; reducing persistence in the face of difficulty; exerting little effort; and, in sport, even dropping out if achievement of the desired goal appears difficult. These people avoid competitive contests, as their lack of competence may be exposed. While the participant may view these avoidance behaviors as adaptive, because a lack of ability is disguised, they are considered maladaptive in terms of achievement behavior.

One of the most important tenets of AGT is that the states of involvement are mutually exclusive (e.g., Nicholls, 1989 ; Treasure et al., 2001 ). One is either ego or task involved. One’s state of motivational involvement ranges on a continuum from task to ego involvement. The goal state is very dynamic and can change from moment to moment as information is processed (Gernigon, d’Arippe-Longueville, Delignières, & Ninot, 2004 ). An athlete may begin a task with strong task-involved motivation, but contextual events may make the athlete wish to demonstrate superiority to others, and the athlete becomes ego involved in the task (as an example, when a coach publicly highlights a mistake). Similarly, an athlete may begin a competitive event with a strong ego-involved state of involvement, but as the event unfolds, the athlete may realize he or she will win easily (or lose emphatically) and therefore begin to work on mastery criteria instead and become task involved. Thus, goal states are dynamic and ebb and flow depending on the perception of the athlete.

In this article, when we refer to the motivated state of involvement of the individual, we use the terms ego and task involvement to be consistent with Nicholls’s use of the terms. However, other theorists use different terms such as mastery and performance (e.g., Ames, 1992a ; Dweck, 1986 ). In addition, when we refer to individual dispositions, we use the terms task and ego orientation to be consistent with Nicholls. Again, other motivation theorists (e.g., Dweck, 1986 , 2006 ; Elliot, 1999 ; Maehr & Braskamp, 1986 ) have used different terms (e.g., self-schemas, personal theories of achievement, implicit personal theories, personal investment) to describe the same phenomena.

Goal Orientations, an Individual Difference Variable

When individuals are predisposed (e.g., through their personal theory of achievement) to act in an ego- or task-involved manner, these predispositions are called achievement goal orientations . Individual differences in the disposition to be ego or task involved may be the result of socialization through task or ego-involving contexts in the home or other significant achievement contexts (e.g., classrooms, sport). The way Elliott and Dweck ( 1988 ) explain it is that each of the achievement goals runs off a different “program with different commands, decision rules, and inference rules, and hence, with different cognitive, affective, and behavioral consequences. Each goal, in a sense, creates and organizes its own world—each evoking different thoughts and emotions and calling forth different behaviors” (p. 11).

Goal orientations are not “traits” or based on needs. They are cognitive schemas that are dynamic and subject to change as information pertaining to one’s performance on the task is processed. The orientations have some stability over time and are relatively enduring in sport (Duda & Whitehead, 1998 ; Roberts, Treasure, & Balague, 1998 ). Thus, being task or ego oriented refers to the inclination of the individual to be task or ego involved in sport.

The important attribute of achievement goal orientations is that they are orthogonal and independent. One can be high or low in each or both orientations at the same time. Based on developmental research with children, Nicholls ( 1989 ) concluded that by the age of 12, it is possible for an individual to be high or low in both task and ego goal orientation, or high in one and low in the other. In the sport and exercise literature, this orthogonality has been supported (e.g., Duda, 2001 ; Lemyre, Roberts, & Ommundsen, 2002 ; Lochbaum et al., 2016 ; Pensgaard & Roberts, 2000 ; Roberts, Treasure, & Kavussanu, 1996 ; Walling & Duda, 1995 ). For qualitative reviews, see Duda and Whitehead ( 1998 ), and Roberts ( 2012 ) and colleagues (Roberts, Treasure, & Kavussanu, 1997 ; Roberts, Treasure, & Conroy, 2007 ).

The implications of the orthogonality of goal orientations are important. The research evidence in sport suggests that individuals with high task and high ego or high task and low ego orientations have the most adaptive motivational profiles (e.g., Fox, Goudas, Biddle, Duda, & Armstrong, 1994 ; Hodge & Petlichkoff, 2000 ; Pensgaard & Roberts, 2002 ; Roberts, Treasure, & Kavussanu, 1996 ; Smith, Balaguer, & Duda, 2006 ). As one would expect, when an individual has been high in ego and low in task, or high in task and low in ego, then the findings are consistent with the findings reported above for task and ego orientation (task orientation is adaptive; ego orientation, especially when coupled with low perception of competence, is generally maladaptive). However, we find that high ego orientation when coupled with high (or moderate) task orientation is not maladaptive (e.g., Cumming, Hall, Harwood, & Gammage, 2002 ; Harwood, Cumming, & Fletcher, 2004 ; Pensgaard & Roberts, 2002 ; Smith et al., 2006 ; Wang & Biddle, 2001 ). Therefore, rather than focusing on whether an individual is task or ego oriented, it is important to consider the simultaneous combination of task and ego orientation (Kaplan & Maehr, 2007 ; Roberts et al., 2007 ).

The Research Evidence

Two strategies are used to determine the goal orientation profiles (high in each, high in one and low in the other, and low in each). One strategy has been to create the four profile groups through a mean or median split of the task and ego scores (e.g., Fox et al., 1994 ; Roberts et al., 1996 ). A weakness of this approach is that individuals may be misclassified. An alternative is to use cluster analysis to obtain the goal profiles (e.g., Hodge & Petlichkoff, 2000 ). Researchers in sport have used cluster analysis (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1998 ) to investigate goal orientations and in general have supported the use of cluster analysis to produce the goal orientation profiles (e.g., Cumming et al., 2002 ; Harwood et al., 2004 ; Hodge & Petlichkoff, 2000 ; Smith et al., 2006 ; Wang & Biddle, 2001 ). The clusters have varied across these studies, but importantly, participants with high ego/high task and high task/moderate or low in ego goal orientations have consistently reported more desirable responses on the variables under study (e.g., greater imagery use, more physical activity, higher self-determination, better social relationships). Thus, the motivational implications of the orthogonality of goals are a very important attribute of AGT.

Elite athletes are likely to be high task and high ego (e.g., Pensgaard & Roberts, 2000 ) or high ego and low or moderate in task orientation. In sport, the individuals most at risk are the high ego and low task oriented. These are the people most likely to exhibit maladaptive motivation, drop out, and are the athletes most likely to burn out when they believe they cannot demonstrate competence (Lemyre, Roberts, & Stray-Gundersen, 2007 ). The low ego and low task people are the least motivated, and they may not even commit to achievement tasks. The important issue in the present discussion is that the orthogonality of the goal orientations has been demonstrated quite conclusively (see Lochbaum et al., 2016 ), and the orthogonality of the goals is an important factor determining sustained motivated behavior in sport. The avenue of research related to achievement goals in the context of sport and performance has demonstrated that individual differences in goal orientations are associated with different motivational processes and different achievement behaviors (e.g., Lemyre et al., 2007 ). In comprehensive previous reviews, the hypotheses pertinent to the goal orientations are consistently supported (e.g., Duda, 2001 ; Duda & Hall, 2001 ; Lochbaum et al., 2016 ; Roberts, 2001 , 2012 ). Task orientation is associated with adaptive achievement strategies, positive affect, well-being, less cheating, better performance, and intrinsic forms of motivation. Ego orientation is associated with maladaptive achievement strategies, negative affect, ill-being, and extrinsic forms of motivation.

Goal Orientations and Mindsets

Dweck ( 2012 ) differs from Nicholls somewhat in that she argues that one’s personal theory of motivation gives rise to implicit theories about how things work in achievement settings. Dweck ( 2000 ) agrees with Nicholls ( 1989 ) that there exist specific individual difference variables that stimulate the pursuit of different goals; such variables are implicit person theories (IPTs). These theories reflect beliefs individuals have about themselves and their assumptions about the plasticity of personal characteristics such as personality, abilities (e.g., athletic), and intelligence, which guides human behavior (Dweck, 1986 ). Because they are not explicitly enunciated in the mind of the individual holding them, these person theories are typically referred to as implicit (Burnette, O’Boyle, VanEpps, Pollack, & Finkel, 2013 ). Thus, IPTs portray schematic knowledge structures that include beliefs about the stability of a characteristic, which in turn classifies the way individuals assign meanings to various occasions (Burnette et al., 2013 ; Ross, 1989 ). According to Dweck ( 1986 , 2012 ), there are two such IPTs. An entity IPT, also referred to as a fixed mindset , assumes that personal attributes are entities that reside within individuals and cannot be changed much over time (Dweck, 2000 , 2012 ). Thus, a so-called entity theorist believes that individuals have given abilities that cannot really be changed or developed (Dweck, 2006 ).

On the other hand, incremental IPT, also referred to as a growth mindset , assumes that personal attributes are relatively changeable (Dweck, 1999 ). Thus, individuals with a growth mindset, also called incremental theorists, believe that with effort, guidance, and effective strategies, all individuals can develop and increase their abilities over time (Dweck, 1999 , 2006 ).

The two mindsets are operationalized in such a manner that individuals lie somewhere along a continuum between the fixed and growth mindset prototypes; thus, one of the implicit theories is likely to be dominant (Heslin & Vandewalle, 2008 ; Spray, Wang, Biddle, Chatzisarantis, & Warburton, 2006 ). Still, it should be noted that it may be possible and beneficial for individuals to hold a combination of both growth and fixed mindsets (Dweck & Leggett, 1988 ; Harwood, Spray, & Keegan, 2008 ): That is, when present differences in relative ability are recognized, but blended with an emphasis on individual growth in ability (Dweck & Elliot, 1983 ; Dweck & Leggett, 1988 ). Sport psychological research has provided support for this suggestion given the typically negative, but weak, relationship between higher-ordered growth and fixed mindset dimensions (Biddle, Wang, Chatzisarantis, & Spray, 2003 ; Spray et al., 2006 ; Wang, Woon, Biddle, & Spray, 2005 ).

The IPTs (or mindsets) are relatively stable dispositions, and empirical evidence supports such a conceptualization (Dweck, 1999 ; Dweck, Chiu, & Hong, 1995 ; Dweck & Leggett, 1988 ). However, there is also empirical evidence indicating that IPTs may be modified through interventions where changes in IPTs and behavior have been found to sustain for periods of six to nine weeks (e.g., Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002 ; Heslin, Latham, & Vandewalle, 2005 ).

IPTs (or mindsets) have been studied comprehensively in the educational achievement domain typically with experimental designs, although scholars have extended the IPT applicability to other domains such as work (Heslin & Vandewalle, 2008 ) and sport/physical education (Ommundsen, 2003 ; Spray et al., 2006 ). Accordingly mindsets have been shown to be important for success in various domains such as physical and emotional health, in social relationships, in academics, and in the workplace (Dweck, 2012 ). In sport, existing research has mainly been conducted with student participants, and thus IPTs have typically been measured with reference to physical education and sport where the majority of studies have been cross-sectional (Harwood et al., 2008 ), with a few exceptions (e.g., Spray et al., 2006 ). In the next paragraph, we will briefly present the main findings from various achievement domains, focusing on sport, physical education, and education.

Research based on diverse populations suggests that individuals can hold different IPTs in different domains such as in sport or schoolwork; growth and fixed mindsets are endorsed approximately equally; further, IPTs are generally uncorrelated with the Big Five trait dimensions, cognitive complexity, self-esteem, and education (Burnette et al., 2013 ). IPTs have previously been linked to self-regulatory processes such as social comparison, selective information attention, goal setting, and overcoming stereotype threat (Aronson et al., 2002 ; Mangels, Butterfield, Lamb, Good, & Dweck, 2006 ; Nussbaum & Dweck, 2008 ; Robins & Pals, 2002 ). In the sport domain, a fixed mindset of ability has been associated with self-reported amotivation, increased levels of anxiety, reduced levels of satisfaction, more acceptance of cheating behavior that was partly mediated by approach, and avoidance-performance goal orientation. On the other hand, a growth mindset predicts positively enjoyment, satisfaction, and reduced acceptance of cheating behavior through perceptions of approach and avoidance-mastery goal orientation (Biddle et al., 2003 ; Corrion et al., 2010 ; Ommundsen, 2001c ).

Based on an experimental design, Cury, Da Fonséca, Zahn, and Elliot ( 2008 ) found that a fixed mindset has a detrimental influence on performance. Specifically, holding a fixed mindset facilitated concerns about the implications of failure. Such worry further led to decreased practice that directly undermined performance. This finding aligns with several other studies suggesting that individuals with a growth mindset perform better on various tasks (e.g., Aronson et al., 2002 ; Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007 ; Mangels et al., 2006 ; Moser, Schroder, Heeter, Moran, & Lee, 2011 ; Paunesku et al., 2015 ).

IPTs and Goal Orientation

According to Dweck ( 1986 , 1999 ), individuals have different goals in achievement situations, and these goals have their basis in the individuals’ IPTs. Dweck’s approach to goal orientations may be referred to as a person-oriented approach, where personality plays a major role in goal adoption (Maehr & Zusho, 2009 ). Specifically, Dweck and Leggett ( 1988 ) argue that goal orientations have their basis in the individuals’ IPTs, although they may be responsive to change (e.g., Aronson et al., 2002 ; Paunesku et al., 2015 ; Spray et al., 2006 ).

The goals, which Dweck terms either performance or mastery goals, that individuals adopt help create mastery-oriented or helpless responses (Dweck, 1999 ). Individuals with a growth mindset view their ability as something they can improve over time and are thus more likely to adopt mastery goals (Dweck, 1999 ; Dweck & Leggett, 1988 ; Payne, Youngcourt, & Beaubien, 2007 ). Conversely, individuals with a fixed mindset are more likely to endorse performance goals (ability judgments), which creates vulnerability to a helpless pattern of behavior, particularly when their perceived ability is low (Dweck & Leggett, 1988 ; Maehr & Zusho, 2009 ). When helpless, individuals may attribute their failures to personal inadequacy, deficient abilities, or intelligence, and they experience negative affect (Dweck, 1999 ; Dweck & Leggett, 1988 ). Given that mastery goals concern mastery of new things, such as a new technical skill in ski jumping, growth mindset individuals respond to difficult problem solving with a clear mastery-oriented pattern (Elliott & Dweck, 1988 ). This was evident even when facing failure, where individuals managed to continue their focus on the task and how to solve it.

Fixed mindset individuals show a clear helpless pattern in response to difficult problem solving, especially when failing. In sport and physical education research, similar empirical evidence has emerged where a fixed mindset predicts performance goals while a growth mindset predicts mastery goals (e.g., Biddle, Seos, & Chatzisarantis, 1999 ; Biddle et al., 2003 ; Cury, Da Fonséca, Rufo, & Sarrazin, 2002 ; Ommundsen, 2001a , 2001b ; Spray et al., 2006 ). A meta-analysis of the goal orientation nomological net also found support for Dweck’s ( 1986 , 1999 ) predictions that a fixed mindset is negatively correlated with a mastery orientation and positively correlated with performance orientation (Payne et al., 2007 ). However the effect sizes were very small, indicating limited evidence for Dweck’s ( 1986 ) propositions of IPTs being the primary underlying antecedents of goal orientations.

However, a more recent meta-analysis (Burnette et al., 2013 ) including 28,217 respondents from various achievement domains (68% academic), representing 10 different nations covered in 113 different studies, investigated the relationship between IPTs and self-regulation. The results revealed that IPTs predicted distinct self-regulatory processes (performance and mastery orientation, helpless and mastery strategies, negative emotions, and expectations), which in turn predicted goal achievement. The results indicated that a growth mindset significantly and negatively predicted performance orientation, positively predicted mastery orientation, negatively predicted helpless strategies, positively predicted mastery-oriented strategies, negatively predicted negative emotions, and positively predicted expectations. The effects on goal orientation and helpless/mastery strategies were even stronger in the absence versus presence of ego threats such as failure feedback (Burnette et al., 2013 ). These findings lend additional support for Dweck’s initial propositions that IPTs are important predictors of individual goal orientation.

The Re-Introduction of Approach and Avoid Goals

A provocative theory challenging AGT has emerged from work on the hierarchical model of achievement motivation (e.g., Elliot, 1999 ; Elliot & Conroy, 2005 ). The hierarchical model claims to revise and extend AGT. The theory is based on the premise that approach and avoidance motivation are also important in considering achievement striving. Briefly, the hierarchical model of achievement motivation asserts that the dynamic states of involvement are influenced by both the definition of competence and the valence of the goals.

The arguments are similar to arguments made within Need Achievement Theory and research relative to approach success and avoid failure dispositions (e.g., Atkinson & Feather, 1966 ). Contemporary researchers suggest that an approach and an avoid motivation exist (e.g., Elliot, 1997 ; Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996 ; Middleton & Midgley, 1997 ; Skaalvik, 1997 ) and that individuals strive to be competent (an appetitive or approach valence) or strive to avoid appearing incompetent (an aversive or avoid valence). Thus, it is possible to differentiate goals based on their valence or the degree to which the focal outcome is pleasant or unpleasant.

In reviewing the achievement goal literature, Elliot ( 1994 ) observed that performance goals that focus on the pleasant possibility of demonstrating competence (approach goals) lead to different outcomes than performance goals focused on the unpleasant possibility of demonstrating incompetence (avoidance goals). Performance-avoidance goals reduce both free-choice behavior and self-reported interest in a task, whereas performance-approach goals did not have any consistent effect on intrinsic motivation indices (Rawsthorne & Elliot, 1999 ). This finding led to the introduction of a tripartite model of achievement goals comprising mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals (Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996 ). Following a series of studies by Cury and colleagues (e.g., Cury, Elliot, Sarrazin, Da Fonséca, & Rufo, 2002 ; Cury et al., 2002 ; Cury, Da Fonséca, et al., 2003 ), the model expanded to include a fourth possible achievement goal: mastery-avoidance goal (e.g., Elliot & Conroy, 2005 ). Thus, the argument was proffered that achievement goals should consider both the definition of competence and the valence of the striving . The model now became 2 by 2 with two definitions of competence (mastery vs. performance) and two valences of striving (approaching competence vs. avoiding incompetence) (see Papaioannou, Ziurbanos, Krommidas & Ampatatzoglou, 2012 ; Roberts et al., 2007 ).

The introduction of the hierarchical model has challenged many of the tenets and underlying assumptions of traditional AGT. In particular, it expanded the mastery and performance dichotomy to expand the theory from two goals to four goals. A body of evidence has accumulated to support these assertions, and some argue that the new model is a “better” theory to explain motivated behavior (e.g., Elliot & Conroy, 2005 ). However, the extension is criticized in that it violates some of the basic tenets of AGT (e.g., it negates the orthogonality of orientations) and adds little conceptual understanding to the motivational equation (e.g., Maehr & Zusho, 2009 ; Roberts, 2012 ) and undermines the parsimony and elegance of AGT.

It is not the only source of criticism of the traditional model, or the only expansion of the number of goals. AGT has had strong criticism from Harwood and colleagues (e.g., Harwood, Hardy, & Swain, 2000 ; Harwood & Hardy, 2001 ; Harwood et al., 2008 ) who raise what they term as conceptual and methodological issues. Others have argued for multiple goals, such as process, performance, and outcome goals (e.g., Burton & Weiss, 2008 ; Gould, 2010 ; Hardy, Jones, & Gould, 1996 ; Kingston & Wilson, 2009 ). Harwood and colleagues also argue for multiple states of task involvement and multiple goals (e.g., Harwood et al., 2008 ). Initially, Harwood and colleagues argued that achievement goal theory was not as useful in sport as in education, and they argued that task involvement, as a state, did not exist in sport because of the ego-involving nature of the sport experience: The goal pertinent to sport was termed “self-referenced ego involvement” (Harwood et al., 2000 , p. 244). They proposed that there were three states of involvement that were termed task involvement, self-referenced ego involvement, and norm-referenced ego involvement. This argument was strongly rebutted by Treasure and colleagues (Treasure et al., 2001 ) where the conceptual logic behind the multiple states of involvement was seriously questioned. However, it is for the reader to read the articles and decide for himself or herself.

The above documents the various approaches to arguing for the emergence of goal orientations within AGT. However, the approaches all agree that a personal theory of motivation, an implicit theory, or valence determine the goal orientation (task or ego, mastery or performance) of the individual. The orientation, in turn, determines the state of involvement (task or ego) of the individual.

The Motivational Climate: Mastery and Performance Criteria

One of the most powerful aspects of AGT is that it incorporates not only the individual difference variables of task and ego orientations, growth and entity orientations, but also the situational determinants of task and ego involvement. The situation plays a central role in the motivation process (Ames, 1992a , 1992b , 1992c ; Nicholls, 1984 , 1989 ). Consistent with other motivation research that has emphasized the situational determinants of behavior (e.g., Ames, 1984 ; deCharms, 1976 , 1984 ; Dweck, 2006 ), research within AGT has examined how the structure of the environment can make it more or less likely that an individual will become task or ego involved. The premise of this line of research is that the individual perceives the degree to which task and ego criteria are salient within the context. Through their perception of the criteria inherent in the context and the behaviors necessary to achieve success and/or avoid failure, this affects the achievement behaviors, cognition, and affective responses of individuals (Ames, 1992b ; Roberts, Treasure, & Conroy, 2007 ; Roberts, Treasure, & Kavussanu, 1997 ). When we refer to the achievement cues within the context, the schemas emerging from achievement situations, we will be consistent with Ames and refer to the task-involving aspect of the context as mastery criteria and the ego-involving aspect of the context as performance criteria.

The premise of the research from a situational perspective is that the nature of an individual’s experiences and how he/she interprets these experiences influence the degree to which a mastery and/or a performance set of criteria to achieve success is perceived as salient. A performance climate is created when the criteria of success and failure are other referenced and ego involving (Ames, 1992b ), and the athlete perceives that the demonstration of normative ability is valued. A mastery climate is created when the criteria of success and failure are self-referenced and task involving (Ames, 1992b ), and the athlete perceives that the demonstration of mastery and learning are valued. This is assumed to affect an individual’s interpretation of the criteria of success and failure extant in the context and to affect achievement behavior. The individual will adopt adaptive achievement strategies (namely, to work hard, seek challenging tasks, persist in the face of difficulty) in the climate in which he or she feels comfortable. For most people, and especially children, this is in the climate that emphasizes mastery (e.g., Biddle, 2001 ; Roberts, Treasure, & Conroy, 2007 ; Roberts, Treasure, & Kavussanu, 1997 ; Treasure, 1997 , 2001 ). In mastery-oriented situations, an individual is assumed to adopt adaptive achievement strategies such as working hard, seeking challenging tasks, and persisting in the face of difficulty (Harwood et al., 2015 ; Roberts, 2012 ). Certainly, the extant research supports that assumption (e.g., Treasure, 2001 ). However, we must not forget that some people function well in a performance climate. These are people who are high in perceived competence at the activity and who wish to demonstrate their competence and enjoy demonstrating superiority to others. As long as the perception of high ability lasts, these people seek challenging tasks and revel in demonstrating their ability. But as soon as the perception of ability wavers, because of age, injury, or an individual enters into a more elite context, then these people are likely to adopt maladaptive achievement strategies (namely, to seek easy tasks, reduce effort, or give up in the face of difficulty).

The extant literature in sport suggests that the creation of a mastery motivational climate is likely to be important in optimizing positive (i.e., well-being, sportsmanship, persistence, task perseverance, adaptive achievement strategies) and attenuating negative (i.e., overtraining, self-handicapping, stress responses, burning-out, cheating) attributes (e.g., Fry & Gano-Overway, 2010 ; Iwasaki & Fry, 2016 ; Kuczka & Treasure, 2005 ; Miller et al., 2004 ; Ommundsen & Roberts, 1999 ; Sarrazin, Roberts, Cury, Biddle, & Famose, 2002 ; Standage, Duda, & Ntoumanis, 2003 ; Standage, Treasure, Hooper, & Kuczka, 2007 ; Treasure & Roberts, 2001 ; Wilhelmsen, Sorensen, & Seippel, in press ). This pattern of findings has been confirmed in a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative review using 104 studies (n=34,156) that found that perceptions of a mastery climate were associated with adaptive motivational outcomes including perceived competence, self-esteem, objective performance improvement, intrinsic motivation, positive affective states, experienced flow, and were less likely to cheat (Harwood et al., 2015 ). Conversely, perceptions of a performance climate were associated with extrinsic motivation, negative affective states, maladaptive performance strategies, perfectionism, and likelihood to cheat. The extant evidence, therefore, supports the position that perceptions of a mastery motivational climate are associated with more adaptive motivational and affective response patterns than perceptions of a performance climate in the context of sport engagement.

For the purposes of the present discussion, it is well to realize that dispositional goal orientations and perceptions of the climate are two independent dimensions of motivation within AGT that interact to affect behavior (Nicholls, 1989 ). But the powerful and parsimonious aspect of AGT is that both the individual dispositions and the perception of the motivational climate are encompassed by the theory. It is true that research to date primarily deals with dispositional goal orientations and perceptions of the motivational climate as separate constructs in isolation to each other (e.g., Harwood et al., 2015 ; Lochbaum et al., 2016 ). It has been suggested that an interactionist approach that looks to combine both variables promises to provide a more complete understanding of achievement behaviors in the sport and physical education experience (e.g., Duda, Chi, Newton, Walling, & Catley, 1995 ; Papaioannou, 1994 ; Roberts, 1992 , 2012 ; Roberts & Treasure, 1992 ; Roberts et al., 2007 ; Roberts, Treasure, & Kavussanu, 1997 ; Treasure, 2001 ).

In a qualitative review, Roberts ( 2012 ) argued that instead of looking at achievement goals and the motivational climate separately, as is the custom, AGT should focus on an integrated perspective because dispositional goal orientations and the perceived motivational climate are part of the same theoretical platform and that the energizing force for motivated behavior is the resultant state of involvement. It supports meaningful relationships between personal goals of achievement and/or the perceived criteria of success and failure in the motivational climate with cognitive and affective beliefs about involvement in physical activity, as well as achievement striving.

However, there are few studies that have investigated the interactive effect of both the goal orientations and the motivational climate within the same study. One exception is a recent study investigating the perceived physical and pedagogical inclusion of disabled students in physical education. Wilhelmsen and colleagues ( in press ) found that to feel socially and physically included it is important to have a high mastery climate and a low performance climate. In addition, the children felt more social and pedagogical inclusion when high in task and ego orientation, or high in task orientation, but only when in a mastery climate. Another exception is a study conducted by Cury and colleagues (Cury, Biddle, Famose, Goudas, Sarrazin & Durand, 1996 ). In this study, the researchers utilized structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the interest of adolescent girls in physical education. The researchers conclude by suggesting that their findings support the positive effects of a mastery-oriented motivational climate in physical education and offer evidence of a possible shaping effect of the climate on an individual’s goal orientation. This has been supported in more recent studies (e.g., Iwasaki & Fry, 2016 ).

SEM and multilevel SEM may be appropriate techniques to examine potential relationships among achievement goals and perceptions of the motivational climate, including the testing of interactive effects (e.g., Preacher, Zyphur, & Zhang, 2016 ). Particularly the multilevel SEM approach may provide some interesting insights into how goal orientations and the motivational climate may interplay by simultaneously accounting for the individual and group level of analysis (cf. Lam, Ruzek, Schenke, Conley, & Karabenick, 2015 ).

Research has found interesting relationships between orientations and the climate (e.g., Swain & Harwood, 1996 ; Treasure & Roberts, 1998 ; Wilhelmsen et al., in press ), but some research has failed to find the hypothesized effects (e.g., Harwood & Swain, 1998 ). Although moderated hierarchical analysis does enable researchers to examine the separate, as well as the interactive effects of goal orientations and the motivational climate, this type of analysis is not powerful. However, the fact that significant main effects emerged for both climate and orientations appears to confirm the veracity of investigating the effects of goal orientations and perceptions of the motivational climate that the majority of achievement goal research has taken to date. Even though some have discussed the implications of both goal orientations and the motivational climate within a model (e.g., Roberts, 1992 ; Treasure, 2001 ), we have to agree with Harwood and colleagues ( 2008 ) that research in sport has not yet fully examined the interaction of dispositions and the situational criteria of the motivational climate on the manifestation of goal involvement.

Conclusions From AGT Research

There are two important conclusions we may draw from the evidence of the research effort on AGT over the past 40 years. The first one is that ego involving and IPT focusing on entity goals are more likely to lead to maladaptive achievement behavior, especially when participants perceive competence to be low, are concerned with failure, or invested in protecting self-worth. In such circumstances, the evidence is quite clear: Motivation ebbs, task investment is low, persistence is low, performance suffers, satisfaction and enjoyment are lower, peer relationships suffer, cheating is more likely, burnout is more likely, and participants feel more negatively about themselves and the achievement context. But as we have been at pains to note, this does not mean that ego-involving goals are always negative; in some situations and for some people they are positive. When one is ego oriented with a high perception of competence, then that goal is facilitative of achievement and functions as a motivating construct (e.g., Pensgaard & Roberts, 2002 ). This is precisely why being ego involved in sport can be very motivating and lead to sustained achievement behavior. But even then, ego-involving goals are more “fragile” and can lead to maladaptive achievement striving as context information is processed (Dweck & Leggett, 1988 ) such as when age begins to become a factor in elite sport performance or when injury strikes.

Second, the research is unequivocal that task involving (mastery) and IPT focusing on growth goals are adaptive. When task involved, whether through personal dispositions or participants perceive mastery criteria in the context, or both, then motivation is optimized, participants are invested in the task, persist longer, performance is higher, satisfaction and enjoyment are higher, peer relationships are fostered, burnout and cheating are less likely, and participants feel more positively about themselves and the task. Being task involved has been consistently associated with desirable cognitive-, affective-, and achievement-striving responses. The research is clear that if we wish to optimize motivation in sport and physical activity, we ought to promote task involvement. It does not matter whether we do it through enhancing socialization experiences so that the individual has a task-goal orientation and is naturally task involved (Nicholls, 1989 ) or we structure the physical activity context to be more task involving (Ames, 1992a ; Treasure & Roberts, 1995 , 2001 ). The crucial issue is that the participant has task-involving goals of achievement. The evidence has led many sport psychologists to conclude that being task involved better enables participants to manage motivation in the sport experience (e.g., Brunel, 2000 ; Duda & Hall, 2001 ; Iwasaki & Fry, 2016 ; Hall & Kerr, 1997 ; Pensgaard & Roberts, 2002 ; Roberts, 2001 , 2012 ; Roberts, Treasure, & Conroy, 2007 ; Roberts, Treasure, & Kavussanu, 1997 ; Theeboom, de Knop, & Weiss, 1995 ; Treasure & Roberts, 1995 ).

Now let us discuss Self-Determination Theory and its principal advocates.

Self-Determination Theory and Research

A central element of Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985 ) is the concept of psychological needs. Basic Psychological Needs Theory (BPNT; Deci & Ryan, 2000 ) is one of five mini-theories that constitute the meta-theory of SDT. Within BPNT, Deci and Ryan proposed that individuals have innate and fundamental psychological needs that individuals seek to satisfy in order to achieve psychological adjustment, internalization, well-being, and personal growth. However, a dialectic occurs between the active organism and the social-contextual conditions that constitute the basis for the theory’s predictions about behavior, experience, and development processes. They propose that individuals will develop and function most effectively when their immediate psychosocial environment provides support for their basic psychological needs.

Three basic psychological needs have been identified, namely, the need for autonomy, the need for competence, and the need for relatedness. The need for autonomy refers to the perception that one is an “origin” of his or her own actions (Milyavskaya et al., 2009 ). The need for competence is associated with the perception of experiencing mastery and efficiency in a given environment and social context (Deci & Ryan, 1991 ). The need for relatedness is linked to the perception of experiencing meaningful interactions to significant others in a given context (Milyavskaya et al., 2009 ). Frustration of these needs is believed to have a negative impact on the individual’s psychological development, integrity, and well-being. Self-protective accommodations may be developed by individuals experiencing basic psychological needs thwarting to cope with the associated psychological deficit (Ryan, Sheldon, Kasser, & Deci, 1996 ). While these adjustments may provide some compensating satisfaction, these strategies ultimately fail to satisfy the thwarted basic needs, potentially leading to serious psychological maladjustments or pathologies (Froreich, Vartanian, Zawadzki, Grisham, & Touyz, 2017 ; Thogersen-Ntoumani, Ntoumanis, & Nikitaras, 2010 ).

SDT (Deci & Ryan, 1985 , 2000 ) stipulates that individuals in achievement settings will adopt a more or less self-determined motivational style because of the perceived level of satisfaction and fulfillment of the three basic psychological needs. When all three needs are satisfied within an activity, individuals will feel a high degree of autonomous and self-determined motivation. In different sport and achievement contexts, numerous studies have linked high autonomous motivation to active information seeking, higher levels of performance, task perseverance, goal attainment, and increased well-being (Amabile, Goldfarb, & Brackfield, 1990 ; Van den Broeck, Ferris, Chang, & Rosen, 2016 ; Koestner & Losier, 2002 ). However, lower levels of perceived autonomy have been linked to ineffective goal striving; impaired performance and persistence; increased feelings of stress, anxiety, self-criticism; vulnerability to persuasion, as well as exhaustion and burnout (Van den Broeck et al., 2016 ; Gagné & Forest, 2008 ; Koestner & Losier, 2002 ; Treasure, Lemyre, Kuczka, & Standage, 2007 ). Needs thwarting, defined as the intentional obstruction of the needs (Bartholomew, Ntoumanis, Ryan, & Thøgersen-Ntoumani, 2011 ; Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013 ), has been reported to be more detrimental than experiencing low levels of need satisfaction. It is linked to higher reported levels of ill-being and exhaustion in a performance context (Bentzen, Lemyre, & Kenttä, 2016a ). SDT also describes how different perceptions of a performance environment can either promote or undermine well-being (Deci & Ryan, 2000 ). An autonomy-supportive environment is characterized by an understanding and acknowledgment of one’s perspectives and provides a meaningful rationale for arduous tasks, offering opportunities for personal solutions and minimizing performance pressure (Deci & Ryan, 2000 ; Ryan & Deci, 2002 ). On the other hand, a controlling environment will typically put normative constraints on how one is expected to behave in a given environment, imposing predetermined goals, setting up a variety of restraints, imposing contingent pressure and rewards, and often expecting performance levels beyond reason (Deci & Ryan, 2000 , Gagné & Deci, 2005 ). An autonomy-supportive environment believed to promote basic psychological needs satisfaction while controlling environment will likely challenge the satisfaction of those needs and thwart the process to achieve a healthy balance (Ryan & Deci, 2002 ).

From an SDT perspective, individuals can be motivated for different reasons (Deci & Ryan, 1985 ; Ryan & Deci, 2000 ). These different reasons for being involved in an activity are typically placed on a continuum of autonomy ranging from high to low self-determination. The assumption is that it is the perceived incentive for the initiation of a behavior that influences subsequent levels of motivation. The most autonomous motivation regulation is labeled intrinsic motivation. An activity is intrinsically motivated and autonomous when it is freely experienced and self-endorsed. Intrinsic motivation emanates from the target behavior itself with the locus of causality being perceived as internal. However, some actions can be motivated by external sources of regulations that are not necessarily endorsed by the self. In this case people do not feel as autonomous, perceiving an external locus of causality (deCharms, 1968 ). Behaviors are perceived as being extrinsically motivated when individuals perform an activity because they value its associated outcomes more than the activity itself. SDT (Deci & Ryan, 1985 , 2008 ) contends that there is a continuum of extrinsic motivation, with each type of motivation differing as a function of the level of self-determination. The first extrinsic regulation is termed integrated regulation. Executed volitionally, integrated extrinsically motivated behaviors differ from intrinsically motivated actions in that they are aimed at obtaining personally important outcomes. The next extrinsic regulation on the continuum is identified regulation, corresponding to when the individual decides to participate in a task judged important for him/herself though not really interesting, such as exercising only for health benefits. The following regulation is termed introjected whereby behavior is fueled by inner pressures, such as guilt, to perform when the individual is not intrinsically interested but feels he/she ought to participate in the activity. The fourth extrinsic regulation is labeled external and represents extrinsic motivation as it was originally defined in the literature, for example, behavior controlled by specific external factors (Deci & Ryan, 2000 ). An externally regulated individual typically engages in the behavior to obtain something (e.g., an award) or to avoid a negative consequence (e.g., punishment). Finally, individuals can also behave in some contexts without any motivational reasons for participating in the activity. This construct is termed amotivation and it results from not valuing an activity (Deci & Ryan, 2000 ). Motivated individuals lack intention to participate in a given activity, and they do not perceive contingencies between their behavior and achievement outcomes. They are entirely lacking any form of self-determination, they have no relationship to any achievement goal, and their somewhat automatized behavior is solely controlled by the environment.

The different motivational regulations can thus be differentiated on a motivational continuum based on their relative autonomy, reflecting the level of self-determination within each regulation (Ryan & Connell, 1989 ). Intrinsic motivation is purely self-determined as it is defined through being involved in an activity for its own sake, because it is interesting and satisfying (Ryan, 1995 ). There are two extrinsically motivated forms of regulations that are also autonomous: namely, integrated and identified (Ryan & Deci, 2000 ). Integrated regulation is seen as is wholly autonomous as it reflects a behavior that is close to one’s own values and identity, while it is not necessarily interesting. Identified regulation is an autonomous form of motivational regulation as it reflects to what degree an athlete values sport participation. On the motivational continuum, these three autonomous regulations are followed by three less self-determined forms of motivation. Two of them are often seen as controlled motivational regulations, namely, introjected and extrinsic regulations. Introjected regulation refers to an athlete acting to avoid guilt and shame or to attain ego enhancements, such as pride (Deci & Ryan, 2000 ). External regulation is the least self-determined form of motivation on the continuum as it is characterized by behaviors conducted to satisfy external demands or to reward contingency (Chemolli & Gagné, 2014 ). Amotivation has been interpreted as a separate construct, outside of the continuum.

In an attempt to simplify these concepts and for the sake of parsimony, motivational regulations have often been collapsed into two types, based on whether they refer to more autonomous (intrinsic and identified) or more controlled (introjected and external) forms of motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2008 ; Williams, Gagné, Ryan, & Deci, 2002 ). While autonomous motivation refers to athletes feeling self-determined and involved because their sport is personally important or interesting (Williams et al., 2002 ), controlled motivation refers to behaviors of athletes feeling pressured or coerced by internal or external sources (Ryan & Deci, 2000 ). Research clearly indicates that these two dimensions of motivation lead to very different outcomes in performance settings (Deci & Ryan, 2008 ).

In an attempt to further simplify the use and the interpretation of the theoretical framework, some researchers have used a single score Self-Determination Index (SDI; e.g., Frenet, Guay, & Senecal, 2004 ; Vallerand, Fortier, & Guay, 1997 ; Vallerand, & Rousseau, 2001 ). The SDI has typically been computed using this formula: [(2*(IM knowledge + IM accomplishment + IM stimulation)/3 + 1*Identified Regulation]−[(1*Introjected Regulation + 1*External Regulation)/2 + 2*Amotivation]. The advantage to using such an approach is that it allows for a simplification of the interpretation of an individual’s quality of motivation where the higher the positive index score, the more self-determined the motivation. Some researchers (e.g., Lemyre, Treasure, & Roberts, 2006 ) have demonstrated that it can be a useful methodology when investigating shifts in motivation over time. Lemyre and colleagues have also reported that this approach has important limitations as it collapses regulations with potentially very different effects on how individuals interpret the reasons for participating in different activities. Additionally, incorporating the amotivation subscale to the SDI may seem counterintuitive as it refers to the absence of regulation and should perhaps be interpreted independently from the continuum. In order to truly grasp the influence of each type of regulations and their potential interaction, Chemolli and Gagné ( 2014 ) argued that the quality of motivation should be measured with separate regulation scores rather than a sum score of regulations, as each motivational regulation should be seen as a temperature scale on its own. Recent studies investigating changes in quality of motivation over time have adopted this approach with advanced statistical analyses.

Research Evidence

SDT states that intrinsic motivation and more self-determined forms of extrinsic motivation (identified, integrated regulations) are associated with adaptive emotional, cognitive, and behavioral consequences. The non-self-determined forms of motivation (introjected and extrinsic regulations) and amotivation have been associated with a variety of maladaptive participation outcomes in different performance settings (Deci & Ryan, 2000 ). Even though some researchers (e.g., Martinent & Decret, 2015 ) have clearly argued that higher levels of self-determined forms of motivation generally increase chances to succeed and reach the elite level in sports, Vallerand and colleagues ( 2008 ) have suggested that a combination of different motivational regulations (self-determined and controlled) may be optimal in achieving high levels of performance depending on the context and the time frame. That is, the quality of motivation of participants in sports and other performance contexts will often reflect a motivational profile based on a combination of self-determined and controlled forms of motivation, also leading to positive outcomes. Hypothetically, the presence of certain self-determined reasons for engaging in activity may neutralize the negative influence of other controlled reasons for participation, while the presence of these regulations may significantly add to the motivation and the determination of an athlete.

In a study by DiBartolo, Frost, Chang, LaSota, and Grills ( 2004 ), the authors state that individuals in a performance context pursuing challenging goals and high, personal standards may experience different levels of self-determined motivation because of perceiving these goals and standards of performance as a challenge or a required level of performance necessary to attain or to maintain self-worth. The assumption is that intrinsic motivation translates well in a challenge-seeking state, as the athlete is able to maintain intrinsic interest for the activity. In contrast, if those high, personal standards are in order to maintain or attain a sense of self-worth, it may hinder self-determined behavior. Autonomous and self-determined motivation is expected to lead to more adaptive coping skills accompanied by more flexible and positive stress appraisals (Mouratidis & Michou, 2011 ). When motivation is not self-determined and the athlete’s behavior is externally regulated, the athlete will perceive less control, which may lead to maladaptive achievement outcomes such as performance impairment, physical, and emotional exhaustion, which are all symptoms of burnout (Lemyre et al., 2007 ). Research in this area has suggested that athlete burnout is a result of a negative shift toward a less self-determined quality of motivation and a continuous experience of stress. This is due to personal factors such as maladaptive forms of passion and perfectionism or situational factors such as parental pressure or physical overtraining (Gould, 1996 ; Lemyre et al., 2007 ; Lemyre, Treasure, & Roberts, 2006 ). Athletes who suffer from burnout will typically show signs of demotivation because of the reduced sense of accomplishment and devaluation of the sport experience in general (Lemyre et al., 2007 ). Burnout seems to share many commonalities with amotivation. Amotivation reflects a state where an athlete who was originally showing great motivation for an activity experienced a gradual deterioration of the quality of his or her motivation over time, often in the face of adversity and an inability to achieve important goals. The athlete ends up by feeling that there is no relationship between the investment in the activity and the return for this investment (Lemyre et al., 2006 ). These findings support the use of Self-Determination Theory to understand better the factors leading to maladaptive achievement outcomes in sports such as burnout. In addition, Quested and Duda ( 2011 ) found that promoting autonomous motivation is relevant to reduce the risk of burnout in vocational dancers.

In a series of articles investigating psychological adjustment, well-being, and prevention of exhaustion in elite sport coaches, Bentzen and colleagues (Bentzen, Lemyre, & Kenttä, 2014 , 2016a , 2016b ) used an SDT framework to better understand the complex challenges associated with performing in a position of leadership in sports. In one of their articles (Bentzen et al., 2016a ), the authors used the SDT-process model (Ryan, Patrick, Deci, & Williams, 2008 ) to highlight how personal and environmental variables interact. While SDT assumes that people have natural developmental tendencies for growth, experiencing mastery, and integrating new experiences into a coherent sense (Ryan & Deci, 2002 ), the SDT-process model presents a framework explaining how these tendencies are fueled and supported in the interaction with the social environment (Deci & Ryan, 2000 ). The process from the individual interacting with the environment to outcomes is described as the SDT-process model (Ryan et al., 2008 ). The proposed sequential development model has four important components where (1) the perceived environment predicts, (2) psychological need satisfaction predicts, (3) the quality of motivation finally predicting, (4) and outcomes (Bentzen et al., 2016a ; Fortier, Sweet, O’Sullivan, & Williams, 2007 ; Halvari, Halvari, Bjørnebekk, & Deci, 2013 ; Williams, McGregor, Zeldman, Freedman, & Deci, 2004 ). Following this framework, Bentzen and colleagues ( 2016a ) investigated changes in motivation indices relative to burnout symptoms in high-performance coaches over the course of a sport season. The authors found that lower levels of need satisfaction in coaches as well as the experience of having their needs thwarted led to maladaptive outcomes. They also found that high levels of autonomous motivation had a preventive effect on the development of exhaustion in elite-level coaches. Their research underlined the importance of a performance environment promoting the development and maintenance of autonomous motivation in individuals to ensure performance and well-being, as well as preventing exhaustion.

Similarities and Differences Between AGT and SDT

As is clear to the reader from the preceding, there are some remarkable similarities in the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional outcomes predicted by SDT and AGT. In both theories, participants become invested in the task, persist longer, performance is higher, satisfaction and enjoyment are higher, peer relationships are fostered, well-being is enhanced, and participants feel more positively about themselves and the task when motivation is task involving and/or self-determined. Being task involved and self-determined have been consistently associated with desirable cognitive-, affective-, and achievement-striving responses. The research is now clear that if we wish to optimize motivation in sport and performing contexts, we ought to promote task involvement and/or autonomous forms of motivation. It does not matter whether we do it through enhancing socialization experiences so that we encourage the individual to be task involved or autonomous or the person is naturally task involved through their disposition to be task oriented (AGT) or to satisfy basic needs (SDT).

However, the theories do have some basic differences. First, and most obvious, AGT and SDT differ in the energization of achievement behavior. SDT argues that the person is motivated to satisfy the basic needs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy. It is striving to satisfy these basic needs that stoke the motivational engine. In terms of “nature versus nature,” SDT assumes that nature is the major underlying energization of motivated behavior, and there are universal basic needs that every person has and seeks to satisfy, even though a dialectic occurs between the context and the individual. Conversely, AGT argues that we are motivated to achieve because we wish to demonstrate competence: to others and ourselves. We learn through our socialization experiences that the demonstration of competence is a valued attribute in society. There is a long history in psychology of how individuals are socialized to recognize that the demonstration of competence is a valued social attribute (e.g., Roberts & Sutton Smith, 1962 ). AGT assumes that the demonstration of competence is a learned attribute; therefore, it is nurtured by socialization processes. Thus, whether we choose SDT or AGT, it becomes an issue of how one believes the psyche functions: Do we have basic needs that drive the human organism, or is the human organism intentional and rational and makes decisions based on how one thinks things work in achievement settings? One’s choice of theory may simply come down to that basic question.

A second major difference in the two theories is in terms of scope. SDT purports to be a meta “theory of everything,” which is concerned with the global nature of human beings (Deci & Ryan, 2012 ). SDT is a meta-theory with five mini-theories within it, with Basic Needs Theory being the motivational “engine” that drives the theory. SDT argues that all people need to experience the basic psychological nutrients of competence, relatedness, and autonomy for effective functioning, psychological health, well-being, and the development of personality and cognitive structures. The degree to which the three basic needs are satisfied or thwarted has positive and negative influence on a wide range of outcomes, including motivation. AGT, on the other hand, is a more restricted theory dealing with achievement-motivated behavior in pursuit of a specified goal that is valued and meaningful to the individual. When one is trying to demonstrate ability in a valued context to self and/or others, then AGT is a parsimonious and elegant theory to describe and explain the social cognitive dynamics of pursuing an achievement goal or outcome (Maehr & Zusho, 2009 ), which is why it lends itself to competitive sport and performance so well.

A third difference is in the arguments pertaining to the relevance of the social context to affect achievement behavior. Both SDT and AGT emphasize the importance of the social environment (AGT: Mastery, Performance; SDT: Autonomy support, Controlling), but there are substantive differences. According to SDT, social factors influence human motivation through the mediating variables of autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Vallerand, 1997 ). On the other hand, AGT focuses on how perceptions of the extant criteria of success and failure that create either a mastery or a performance climate, which in turn interacts with dispositional goals to influence affect, behavior, and cognition in achievement contexts (Ntoumanis, 2001 ). Still, there is a “general convergence of evidence from achievement goal theories and SDT concerning the optimal design of learning environments” (Deci & Ryan, 2000 , p. 260). Specifically, both conceptual frameworks suggest that intrinsic motivation is nurtured in environments that promote self-mastery and choice. On the other hand, intrinsic motivation is thwarted, or supplanted by ego involvement, in environments in which normative comparison operates and rewards are provided contingent on performance.

AGT and SDT also have similarities, and not only in outcome predictions. There are similarities in achievement goals. Achievement goals are relevant to SDT, and researchers have looked at the influence of what is termed goal content (intrinsic vs. extrinsic) on the quality of motivation of individuals in different performance contexts (e.g., Solberg & Halvari, 2009 ). SDT differentiates between intrinsic and extrinsic goal content. Intrinsic goal content is associated to reasons such as learning and personal growth, friendship, and social contribution (Kasser & Ryan, 1996 ). It is assumed to lead to adaptive outcomes. This is very similar to the goal of task involvement in AGT, which is associated with learning, personal growth, and mastery. Extrinsic goal content is associated to reasons such as financial success, status, and physical appearance. Extrinsic goal content increases the risk for an athlete to experience maladaptive participation outcomes (e.g., Solberg & Halvari, 2009 ). This is very similar to the goal of ego involvement in AGT that is associated with status relative to others and the demonstration of normative competence. The conceptual rationale behind the achievement goals is, of course, quite different. In SDT, the assumption is that intrinsic goal content is expected to promote the fulfillment of the three basic needs (Deci & Ryan, 2000 , 2012 ) while extrinsic goals are not instrumental to basic need satisfaction as they lead an individual to focus on external outcomes and social comparison (Kasser & Ryan, 1996 ; Solberg & Halvari, 2009 ). In AGT, because it has a more limited focus on demonstrating a valued social attribute, then the demonstration of competence as one defines competence is expected to influence one’s motivational stance. These concepts in SDT have yet to be exhaustively investigated in the context of sport and performance; however, research has suggested that intrinsic goal content mediated the relationship between sport participation and psychological well-being (Chatzisarantis & Hagger, 2009 ) in a similar way to AGT research findings. In a study of elite athletes, Solberg and Halvari ( 2009 ) found that athletes experiencing autonomy support from their coach were more likely to have autonomous and intrinsic reasons for their goals and reported more positive emotional well-being. This is similar to the research findings with the mastery motivational climate in AGT (e.g., Ames, 1992c ).

All motivation theories over time have a focus on competence, in one form or another. SDT and AGT are no different. SDT’s focus is on the need for competence as a unitary human need that when satisfied will facilitate autonomous motivation (Ntoumanis, 2001 ). SDT has been criticized for not providing a well-articulated and internally consistent conceptualization of the role of competence in maintaining autonomous motivation (Butler, 1987 ). According to Butler, SDT has not sufficiently distinguished between different kinds of competence goals or the relation between the perception of autonomy and different conceptions of ability. It may be argued that SDT has contributed more to the understanding of how social contexts may foster intrinsic motivation by the support of autonomy instead of clarifying how these contexts may contribute to continuing motivation by promoting either one rather than another conception of ability (Butler, 1987 ). This is supported by Spinath and Steinmayr ( 2012 ) who argue also that different aspects of competence are important. For people with competence-demonstration goals, measuring competence relative to others or certain external criteria is important, while for people with competence-development goals, it is important to “measure one’s own competence against intraindividual temporal standards” (p. 1144). The distinction is not captured with measurement of the need for competence. On the other hand, AGT is more concerned with how thoughts and perceptions energize motivated behavior. The focus is on how being task or ego involved influences task difficulty choices and sustained achievement striving. Being “task involved” is important to both theories. Task involvement “bears a considerable relation to intrinsic motivation when applied to the achievement domain” (Deci & Ryan, 2000 , p. 260). When individuals are task involved, their motivation to perform a task derives from intrinsic properties and not from the expected outcomes of the task. When intrinsically motivated, people do an activity because the behavior in itself is interesting as well as spontaneously satisfying. When individuals are task involved, the intrinsic motivation system is involved in initiating, sustaining, and rewarding a specific behavior or activity (Deci & Ryan, 2000 ). Being task involved indicates that the individual strives for mastery, while being intrinsically motivated makes the mastery a reward in itself. Therefore, task involvement facilitates autonomous behavior as well as the need for competence (Ntoumanis, 2001 ).

Despite the partial convergence of constructs (performance climate/controlling climate; mastery climate/autonomous climate; need for competence, task involvement), and similar outcome predictions, the two theories are based on different theoretical perspectives that may make it inappropriate to combine them (Marsh, Craven, Hinkley, & Debus, 2003 ). However, an attempt has been made: Duda ( 2013 ) proposed a hierarchical reconceptualization of the motivational climate in sport, specifically for children, by combining the two conceptual frameworks. Duda introduced “empowering” and “disempowering” dimensions to coaching behavior to integrate SDT and AGT. When coaches are empowering, they will be autonomy supportive, mastery involving, and support social relatedness. Coaches will promote self-referenced criteria of success when assessing competence and will satisfy basic needs in the participants. When coaches are disempowering, they will be controlling and use performance criteria of success. Coaches will promote other referenced criteria of success when assessing competence and be less concerned with satisfying basic needs. Can the concepts of empowerment and disempowerment integrate SDT and AGT to become a unified theory? A recent study would suggest probably not: Using a Bayesian approach, Solstad and colleagues (in review) failed to confirm the hierarchical nature of the coach-created motivational climate as proposed by Duda. Solstad and colleagues agree with Marsh and colleagues ( 2003 ) who argued that the two theories are based on different conceptual arguments, which make it inappropriate to combine them. The empowerment concepts are proposed to integrate the theories, but in fact they make a descriptive and pragmatic case to use both theories to maximize the likelihood of creating a supportive, task-involving, autonomous-coaching climate for the benefit of the children in the sport experience. Future attempts to create a unified theory need to address developing unique energizing constructs because, at the present time, both theories maintain their own unique energizing mechanisms. However, that does not mean that the children do not benefit from the pragmatic inclusion of both theories as argued cogently by Duda; they clearly do (Solstad, 2016 ).

Conclusions and Future Directions

As we have stated above, in both theories, when motivation is task involving and/or self-determined, participants become invested in the task, persist longer, perform better, satisfaction and enjoyment are higher, peer relationships are fostered, well-being is enhanced, and participants feel more positively about themselves and the task. Being task involved and self-determined have been consistently associated with desirable cognitive-, affective-, and achievement-striving responses. The research is now clear that if we wish to optimize motivation in sport and performing contexts, we should promote task involvement and/or autonomous forms of motivation. Both theories recognize the importance of personal variables and the impact of the perceived context on motivation for sustained achievement behavior.

Which theory should we use? Well, that clearly depends on your understanding of how the psyche works. Do you believe that satisfying basic needs drive the human organism? If so, SDT is for you. Do you believe that the human organism is rational and intentional and is driven by how one perceives the social context or believes in trying to demonstrate either task or ego-involved competence? Then AGT is for you. SDT is a more global theory of personality; AGT is limited to achievement tasks that are valued by the person. It is a choice, but the predictions of both theories are remarkably similar. However, it would seem that trying to integrate the theories is not viable at this time (Marsh et al., 2003 ; Solstad et al., forthcoming ), but that does not mean we should stop trying.

It is interesting to note that a mastery/autonomy-supportive climate has been found to facilitate positive outcomes while a performance/controlling climate is associated with negative outcomes. But these climates may be interdependent and may thus exist simultaneously, certainly within AGT (Ames, 1992a , 1992b , 1992c ). An interesting line of inquiry for future research may be to investigate further the interplay between the opposing climates. To the best of our knowledge, there are only two studies that address this, and then only from an AGT approach (Buch, Nerstad, & Safvenbom, 2017 ; Ommundsen & Roberts, 1999 ). For example, Buch and colleagues found a positive relationship between perceived mastery climate and increased intrinsic motivation only when combined with low levels of perceived performance climate. An important task for future research would be to attempt to clarify what may represent a beneficial balance between mastery (autonomous) and performance (controlling) climates in sport and performance.

Another interesting direction could be to question whether being task involved is beneficial for everyone. There is evidence that being ego involved is beneficial for some individuals in competitive contexts when the individual has a high perception of competence (Pensgaard & Roberts, 2000 ). This research showed also that elite athletes seem to benefit from being high in both task and ego orientations. It may be that individuals who are simply high in task orientation may not function well in a highly competitive environment.

Given that mastery (autonomous) and performance (controlling) climates have such profound influence on achievement behavior, future research should address what may be the crucial antecedents of such climates in sport. This would also inform coaching behaviors. As an example, one study has addressed how leadership style (e.g., Baric & Bucik, 2009 ) may be such a relevant antecedent. Other possible and important antecedents may exist.

Some researchers have questioned whether IPTs can operate at the situational level. Although IPTs have been found to be temporarily changeable (interventions), the fact that IPTs initially are operationalized as relatively stable dispositions may confuse an operationalization at the situational level. Perhaps a better and more theoretically sound approach could be to investigate the predictive value of the perceived motivational climate as operationalized by Nicholls ( 1984 ) and Ames ( 1992c ). Dweck’s approach builds on Nicholls’s ( 1981 ) initial ideas, and thus it would facilitate theoretical coherence to link the IPTs with the perceived motivational climate. One study did test this showing that a performance climate induced a fixed mindset of ability, while a mastery climate generated a growth mindset in physical education students (Ommundsen, 2001c ). This study’s findings are based on cross-sectional data that suggests the need for more rigorous designs and data to support the findings. This could also facilitate an answer to how IPTs are socialized in ongoing interactions in various achievement domains. Specifically, the extant criteria of success and failure signaled through the policies, practices, and procedures in sports, at school or in organizations, may contribute to elicit the different beliefs (Maehr & Braskamp, 1986 ).

We began with the philosophical approach of Nicholls ( 1979 ), and we end with a quote from his 1989 book that pertains to both AGT and SDT equally: “If all students are optimally motivated, we are on the way to the goal of equality in the fulfillment of potential” (Nicholls, 1989 , p. 151). Nicholls was interested in the academic domain, but the same is certainly true in the sport domain.

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Your Motivation to Do Sports

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Sports: What Motivates Athletes?

How can athletes maximize their motivation.

Posted October 30, 2009 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

• What Is Motivation?
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• Motivation in sports is important because one must work hard in the face of fatigue, boredom, and pain.
• Motivation is the only contributor to sports performance over which one has control.
• A big part of staying motivated involves generating positive emotions associated with one's efforts.

Motivation is the foundation of all athletic effort and accomplishment. Without your desire and determination to improve your sports performance, all of the other mental factors, confidence , intensity, focus, and emotions, are meaningless. To become the best athlete you can be, you must be motivated to do what it takes to maximize your ability and achieve your goals.

Motivation, simply defined, is the ability to initiate and persist in a task. To perform your best, you must want to begin the process of developing as an athlete and be willing to maintain your efforts until you have achieved your goals. Motivation in sports is so important because you must be willing to work hard in the face of fatigue, boredom , pain, and the desire to do other things. Motivation will impact everything that influences your sports performance: physical conditioning, technical and tactical training, mental preparation, and general lifestyle including sleep, diet , school or work, and relationships.

The reason motivation is so important is that it is the only contributor to sports performance over which you have control. There are three things that affect how well you perform. First, your ability, which includes your physical, technical, tactical, and mental capabilities. Because ability is something you are born with, you can't change your ability so it is outside of your control.

Second, the difficulty of the competition influences performance. Contributors to difficulty include the ability of the opponent and external factors such as an "away game" crowd and weather such as temperature, wind, and sun. You have no control over these factors.

Finally, motivation will impact performance. It is also the only factor over which you have control. Motivation will directly impact the level of success that you ultimately achieve. If you are highly motivated to improve your performance, then you will put in the time and effort necessary. Motivation will also influence the level of performance when you begin a competition. If they're competing against someone of nearly equal skill, it will not be ability that will determine the outcome. Rather, it will be the athlete who works the hardest, who doesn't give up, and who performs his or her best when it counts. In other words, the athlete who is most motivated to win.

In training and competitions, you arrive at a point at which it is no longer fun. I call this the Grind, which starts when it gets tiring, painful, and tedious. The Grind is also the point at which it really counts. The Grind is what separates successful athletes from those who don't achieve their goals. Many athletes when they reach this point either ease up or give up because it's just too darned hard. But truly motivated athletes reach the Grind and keep on going.

Many sports psychologists will say that you have to love the Grind. I say that, except for a very few hyper-motivated athletes, love isn't in the cards because there's not much to love. But how you respond to the Grind lies along a continuum. As I just mentioned, loving the Grind is rare. At the other end of the continuum is "I hate the Grind." If you feel this way, you are not likely to stay motivated. I suggest that you neither love nor hate the Grind; you just accept it as part of the deal in striving toward your goals. The Grind may not be very enjoyable, but what does feel good is seeing your hard work pay off with success.

Effort = Goals?

When I speak to groups of young athletes, I always ask how many have big goals, like going to the Olympics or playing pro ball. About 90 percent raise their hands. I then ask how many are doing everything they can to achieve their goals. Only one or two tentative hands go up. What this tells me is that there is often a big gap between the goals athletes have and the effort they are putting into those goals. It's easy to say that you want to be a successful athlete. It is much more difficult to actually make it happen. If you have this kind of disconnect, you have two choices. You can either lower goals to match your effort or you can raise your effort to match your goals. There is no right answer. But if you're truly motivated to be successful, you better make sure you're doing the work necessary to achieve your goals.

Signs of Low Motivation

There are several signs of low motivation:

• A lack of desire to practice as much as you should.
• Less than 100 percent effort in training.
• Skipping or shortening training.
• Effort that is inconsistent with your goals.

Prime motivation means putting 100 percent of your time, effort, energy, and focus into all aspects of your sport. It involves doing everything possible to become the best athlete you can be.

Prime motivation begins with what I call the three D's. The first D stands for direction . Before you can attain prime motivation, you must first consider the different directions you can go in your sport. You have three choices: stop participating completely, continue at your current level, or strive to be the best athlete you can be.

The second D represents decision . With these three choices of direction, you must select one direction in which to go. None of these directions are necessarily right or wrong, better or worse, they're simply your options. Your choice will dictate the amount of time and effort you will put into your sport and how good an athlete you will ultimately become.

The third D stands for dedication . Once you've made your decision, you must dedicate yourself to it. If your decision is to become the best athlete you can be, then this last step, dedication, will determine whether you have prime motivation. Your decision to be your best and your dedication to your sport must be top priorities. Only by being completely dedicated to your direction and decision will you ensure that you have prime motivation.

Developing Prime Motivation

Focus on your long-term goals . To be your best, you have to put a lot of time and effort into your sport. But, as I noted above, there are going to be times, the Grind, when you don't feel that motivated.

When you feel this way, focus on your long-term goals. Remind yourself why you're working so hard. Imagine exactly what you want to accomplish and tell yourself that the only way you'll be able to reach your goals is to continue to work hard.

Try to generate feelings of inspiration and pride that you will experience when you reach your goals. This technique will distract you from the discomfort of the Grind, focus you on what you want to achieve, and generate positive thoughts and emotions that will get you through the Grind.

Have a training partner . It's difficult to be highly motivated all of the time on your own. There are going to be some days when you just don't feel like getting out there. Also, no matter how hard you push yourself, you will work that much harder if you have someone pushing you. That someone can be a coach, personal trainer, or parent. But the best person to have is a regular training partner, someone at about your level of ability and with similar goals. You can work together to accomplish your goals. The chances are on any given day that one of you will be motivated. Even if you're not very psyched to practice on a particular day, you will still put in the time and effort because your partner is counting on you.

Focus on the greatest competitor . Another way to keep yourself motivated is to focus on your greatest competitor. Identify who your biggest competitor is and put his or her name or photo where you can see it every day. Ask yourself, "Am I working as hard as him/her?" Remember that only by working your hardest will you have a chance to overcome your greatest competitor.

Motivational cues . A big part of staying motivated involves generating positive emotions associated with your efforts and achieving your goals. A way to keep those feelings is with motivational cues such as inspirational phrases and photographs. If you come across a quote or a picture that moves you, place it where you can see it regularly such as in your bedroom, on your refrigerator door, or in your locker. Look at it periodically and allow yourself to experience the emotions it creates in you. These reminders and the emotions associated with them will inspire and motivate you to continue to work hard toward your goals.

Set goals . There are few things more rewarding and motivating than setting a goal, putting effort toward the goal, and achieving the goal. The sense of accomplishment and validation of the effort makes you feel good and motivates you to strive higher. It's valuable to establish clear goals of what you want to accomplish in your sport and how you will achieve those goals. Seeing that your hard work leads to progress and results should motivate you further to realize your goals.

Daily questions . Every day, you should ask yourself two questions. When you get up in the morning, ask, "What can I do today to become the best athlete I can be?" And before you go to sleep, ask, "Did I do everything possible today to become the best athlete I can be?" These two questions will remind you daily of what your goals are and will challenge you to be motivated to do your best.

The heart of motivation . A final point about motivation. The techniques I've just described are effective in increasing your short-term motivation. Motivation, though, is not something that can be given to you. Rather, motivation must ultimately come from within. You must simply want to participate in your sport. You just have to want it really bad.

Jim Taylor, Ph.D. , teaches at the University of San Francisco.

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Motivation in Sports Psychology

Dwight D Eisenhower, once said that ‘motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it’. And as Dr Costas Karageorghis explains, recent research suggests that he wasn’t far wrong. Even better, changing your attitude towards training and competition can significantly enhance motivation.

Different types of motivation

One of the most popular and widely tested approaches to motivation in sport and other achievement domains is self-determination theory 1,2,3 . This theory is based on a number of motives or regulations, which vary in terms of the degree of self-determination they reflect. Self-determination has to do with the degree to which your behaviours are chosen and self-initiated. The behavioural regulations can be placed on a self-determination continuum (see Figure 1 below). From the least to the most self-determined they are amotivation, external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, integrated regulation and intrinsic motivation. Amotivation represents a lack of intention to engage in a behaviour. It is accompanied by feelings of incompetence and a lack of connection between one’s behaviour and the expected outcome. For example, an amotivated athlete might be heard saying, ‘I can’t see the point in training any more – it just tires me out’ or ‘I just don’t get any buzz out of competition whatsoever’. Such athletes exhibit a sense of helplessness and often require counselling, as they are highly prone to dropping out. External and introjected regulations represent non-self-determined or controlling types of extrinsic motivation because athletes do not sense that their behaviour is choiceful and, as a consequence, they experience psychological pressure. Participating in sport to receive prize money, win a trophy or a gold medal typifies external regulation. Participating to avoid punishment or negative evaluation is also external. Introjection is an internal pressure under which athletes might participate out of feelings of guilt or to achieve recognition. Identified and integrated regulations represent self-determined types of extrinsic motivation because behaviour is initiated out of choice, although it is not necessarily perceived to be enjoyable. These types of regulation account for why some athletes devote hundreds of hours to repeating mundane drills; they realise that such activity will ultimately help them to improve. Identified regulation represents engagement in a behaviour because it is highly valued, whereas when a behaviour becomes integrated it is in harmony with one’s sense of self and almost entirely self-determined. Completing daily flexibility exercises because you realise they are part of an overarching goal of enhanced performance might be an example of integrated regulation. Intrinsic motivation comes from within, is fully self-determined and characterised by interest in, and enjoyment derived from, sports participation. There are three types of intrinsic motivation, namely intrinsic motivation to know, intrinsic motivation to accomplish and intrinsic motivation to experience stimulation. Intrinsic motivation is considered to be the healthiest type of motivation and reflects an athlete’s motivation to perform an activity simply for the reward inherent in their participation.

Motivational techniques for coaches and athletes

1. goal setting.

Athletes should be encouraged to set a few ambitious but achievable long-term goals; perhaps to represent their country in a major championship in three or four years. Through empowering athletes to set their own goals, they are more likely to accept the challenges that lie ahead and pursue the goals with enthusiasm 13 ;

To keep athletes on track with their long-term goals, they should also set appropriate medium-term goals. For example, following a bronze medal-winning performance at the 2004 Athens Olympics, UK heptathlete Kelly Sotherton set herself the medium-term goal of winning the 2006 Commonwealth title in Melbourne (which she achieved) en route to pursuing her long-term goal to be crowned Olympic champion at the 2008 Beijing Games;

By far the most important goals in practical terms are those for the short-term, as it is these that keep athletes focused on the checkmarks which are seminal to achieving superior performance. Therefore, short-term goals should be predominantly process-oriented. For example, when Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney injured a metatarsal six weeks before the start of the soccer World Cup, he set a series of process goals in his race to regain full fitness. These included daily physiotherapy sessions, remedial exercises in an oxygen chamber, non weight-bearing aerobic activities, monitoring of nutritional intake and so on;

Goals need to be monitored and revised on a regular basis. One of the biggest mistakes that coaches make in setting goals is that they are often too rigid in their approach. The goal setting process works best when there is some flexibility and the individual athlete or team take ownership of each goal. Thus, coaches and managers are better off exercising some democracy when setting goals, particularly if working with more experienced athletes.

2. Using extrinsic rewards

According to SDT 1 , the key aspect in using extrinsic rewards effectively is that they reinforce an athlete’s sense of competence and self-worth. Thus, a reward should be informational in nature rather than controlling. If a reward comes to be controlling, it can significantly undermine intrinsic motivation. For a reward to be informational, it is advisable that it has relatively little monetary worth (ie it is a token reward), such as a ‘woman of the match’ or ‘athlete of the tour’ title. Also, the reward should be presented to an athlete in front of all potential recipients with some emphasis placed on the prestige associated with it. Other popular ways of using token rewards include etching athletes’ names on annual honours boards for their contributions, or awarding a special item of clothing.

3. Motivational music

A particularly good way to motivate athletes in training and prior to competition is through the use of music they perceive to be inspirational. Sydney Olympics rowing gold medallist, Tim Foster, now a respected coach, uses music to punctuate all of the indoor training sessions that he leads. Specifically, during circuit training or rowing ergometer intervals, he puts on loud/fast music, while during recovery periods he plays soft/slow music.

Therefore, work and recovery times are regulated by music. Research from Brunel University indicates that this approach increases work output, reduces perceived exertion and improves in-task affect – the pleasure experienced during the activity 14,15 .

4. Positive self-talk

Positive self-talk is a technique that can be used to enhance motivation across a wide range of achievement domains. It makes use of an athlete’s powerful inner voice to reinforce their self-esteem or important aspects of their performance. With appropriate repetition, self-talk can positively alter an athlete’s belief system. I use three types of self-talk in my work with athletes and will illustrate each with an example to assist you in coming up with your own. The first type is known as task-relevant self-talk, which serves to focus an athlete’s attention on the task at hand. A karateka I worked with used the mantra ‘pillar of power’ to reinforce his strong posture. The second type is known as mood-related self-talk, which impacts on how athletes feel. An international water skier came up with ‘butterflies in formation’ to represent how the butterflies in her tummy would work for her rather than against her. The third type is known as a positive self-affirmation statement and the most famous exponent of these was the legendary boxer Mohammed Ali who repeated the claim, ‘I am the greatest’ so many times that even his opponents believed it.

‘I figured that, if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.’ Mohammed Ali

Each and every one of us has an untapped energy source that can be drawn upon to bring about superior results. Enhancing motivation is fundamentally about a change of attitude, developing a positive ‘can do’ mindset and engaging in systematic behaviours – the short-term process goals – that facilitate improvement.

If you have a leadership role in sport you will have considerable influence on how motivated your athletes or team might feel. You can instil a good work ethic, recognise individual effort and instigate transparent reward structures that reinforce people’s sense of competence.

To work best, the techniques mentioned in this article need to be moulded around specific circumstances and the needs of individual athletes. Always strive to be original and innovative in the application of motivational techniques.

1. Deci E, Ryan R (1985) Intrinsic Motivation and Self-determination in Human Behavior, New York: Plenum 2. J Personality Social Psych 1987; 53:1024-1037 3. AmPsych 2000; 55:68-78 4. Csikszentmihalyi M (1975) Beyond Boredom and Anxiety, San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass 5. Csikszentmihalyi M (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, New York: Harper and Row 6. J Sports Sci 2001; 19:397-409 7. Brit J Educ Psych 1994; 64:253-261 8. Proceedings of the 2001 World Congress on Sport Psychology, Skiathos, Greece 2001; 3:321-323 9. J Sport Exerc Psych 2004; 26:396-411 10. Psych Sport Exerc 2004; 5:183-200 11. Res Quart Exerc Sport 2000; 71:387-397 12. Vlachopoulos S and Karageorghis C (under review) 13. Advances in Sport Psychology (2nd ed), Champaign IL: Human Kinetics, 2002: 459-499 14. J Sport Behav 1997;20:54-68 15. Aus J Psych; in press

Costas Karageorghis

Dr Costas Karageorghis is a reader in sport psychology at Brunel University, west London where he also manages the athletics club. He has published extensively in the field of sport and exercise psychology and has been a BASES accredited sport psychologist for 11 years.

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How to Write a Non-Cliche College Essay About Sports + Examples

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• How To Make Your Sports Essay Unique

Great Examples of College Essays About Sports

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You’ve been brainstorming essay topics for your college applications, and you think you’ve finally found the right one: an extended metaphor likening your experience on the field with overcoming personal struggles. The problem: many other students have this same thought. 

The purpose of a college essay is to make yourself stand out as a unique individual, but when students write about sports, they often blend in. Because of that, students are usually advised to pick a different topic.

That being said, it is possible to write a non-cliche college essay about sports if you put in a little extra effort. Read along to learn how to make your sports essay different from all the other sports essays.

Sports essays are cliche when they follow a standard trajectory. Some of these trajectories include writing a story about:

• An agonizing defeat
• Forging bonds with teammates
• Overcoming adversity
• Overcoming an injury
• Refusing to quit
• Victory during a big game

Because sports essays have very similar themes and “lessons learned,” it can be difficult to make your story stand out. These trajectories also often focus too much on the sport or storyline, and not enough on the writer’s reflections and personality.

As you write your essay, try to think about what your experience says about you rather than what you learned from your experience. You are more than just one lesson you learned!

(Keep in mind that the sports essay is not the only college essay cliche. Learn about other essay cliches and how to fix them in our complete guide).

How to Make Your Sports Essay Unique

1. focus on a specific moment or reflection..

The college essay is a way for students to humanize themselves to admissions officers. You do not feel human if you are describing yourself as just another player on the field!

One important way to make your essay about you (not just about sports) is by focusing on a specific moment in time and inviting the reader to join you in that moment. Explain to the reader what it would be like to be sitting in that locker room as you questioned the values of the other players on your team. Ask your reader to sit with you on the cot in the trainer’s room as your identity was stripped away from you when they said “your body can’t take this anymore.” Bring your reader to the dinner table and involve them in your family’s conversation about how sports were affecting your mental health and your treatment of those around you.

Intense descriptions of a specific experience will evoke emotions in your reader and allow them to connect with you and feel for you.

When in doubt, avoid anything that can be covered by ESPN. On ESPN, we see the games, we see the benches, we even see the locker rooms and training rooms. Take your reader somewhere different and show them something unique.

2. Use sports to point out broader themes in your life.

The main risk when writing about sports is neglecting to write about yourself. Before you get started, think about the main values that you want to express in your sports essay. Sports are simply your avenue for telling the reader what makes you unique. 

As a test, imagine if you were a pianist. Would you be able to talk about these same values? What if you were a writer? Or a chemist? Articulating your values is the end, and sports should simply be your means.

Some values that you might want to focus on:

• Autonomy (you want to be able to set your mind to anything and achieve it on your own)
• Growth (you seek improvement constantly)
• Curiosity (you are willing to try anything once)
• Vulnerability (you aren’t afraid to fail, as long as you give it your all)
• Community (you value the feedback of others and need camaraderie to succeed)
• Craft (you think that with deliberate care, anything can be perfected)
• Responsibility (you believe that you owe something to those around you and perhaps they also owe something to you)

You can use the ESPN check again to make sure that you are using sports as an avenue to show your depth.

Things ESPN covers: how a player reacts to defeat, how injuries affect a player’s gameplay/attitude, how players who don’t normally work well together are working together on their new team.

Things ESPN doesn’t cover: the conversation that a player had with their mother about fear of death before going into a big surgery (value: family and connection), the ways that the intense pressure to succeed consumed a player to the point they couldn’t be there for the people in their life (value: supporting others and community), the body image issues that weigh on a player’s mind when playing their sport and how they overcame those (value: health and growth).

3. Turn a cliche storyline on its head.

There’s no getting around the fact that sports essays are often cliche. But there is a way to confront the cliche head-on. For example, lots of people write essays about the lessons they learned from an injury, victory, and so on, but fewer students explain how they are embracing those lessons. 

Perhaps you learned that competition is overwhelming for you and you prefer teamwork, so you switched from playing basketball to playing Dungeons & Dragons. Maybe, when your softball career ended abruptly, you had to find a new identity and that’s when you became obsessed with your flower garden and decided to pursue botany. Or maybe, you have stuck with football through it all, but your junior-year mental health struggle showed you that football should be fun and you have since started a nonprofit for local children to healthily engage with sports.

If your story itself is more cliche, try bringing readers to the present moment with you and show why the cliche matters and what it did for you. This requires a fair amount of creativity. Ensure you’re not parroting a frequently used topic by really thinking deeply to find your own unique spin.

Night had robbed the academy of its daytime colors, yet there was comfort in the dim lights that cast shadows of our advances against the bare studio walls. Silhouettes of roundhouse kicks, spin crescent kicks, uppercuts and the occasional butterfly kick danced while we sparred. She approached me, eyes narrowed with the trace of a smirk challenging me. “Ready spar!” Her arm began an upward trajectory targeting my shoulder, a common first move. I sidestepped — only to almost collide with another flying fist. Pivoting my right foot, I snapped my left leg, aiming my heel at her midsection. The center judge raised one finger. 

There was no time to celebrate, not in the traditional sense at least. Master Pollard gave a brief command greeted with a unanimous “Yes, sir” and the thud of 20 hands dropping-down-and-giving-him-30, while the “winners” celebrated their victory with laps as usual. 

Three years ago, seven-thirty in the evening meant I was a warrior. It meant standing up straighter, pushing a little harder, “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am”, celebrating birthdays by breaking boards, never pointing your toes, and familiarity. Three years later, seven-thirty in the morning meant I was nervous. 

The room is uncomfortably large. The sprung floor soaks up the checkerboard of sunlight piercing through the colonial windows. The mirrored walls further illuminate the studio and I feel the light scrutinizing my sorry attempts at a pas de bourrée, while capturing the organic fluidity of the dancers around me. “Chassé en croix, grand battement, pique, pirouette.” I follow the graceful limbs of the woman in front of me, her legs floating ribbons, as she executes what seems to be a perfect ronds de jambes. Each movement remains a negotiation. With admirable patience, Ms. Tan casts me a sympathetic glance.   

There is no time to wallow in the misery that is my right foot. Taekwondo calls for dorsiflexion; pointed toes are synonymous with broken toes. My thoughts drag me into a flashback of the usual response to this painful mistake: “You might as well grab a tutu and head to the ballet studio next door.” Well, here I am Master Pollard, unfortunately still following your orders to never point my toes, but no longer feeling the satisfaction that comes with being a third degree black belt with 5 years of experience quite literally under her belt. It’s like being a white belt again — just in a leotard and ballet slippers. 

But the appetite for new beginnings that brought me here doesn’t falter. It is only reinforced by the classical rendition of “Dancing Queen” that floods the room and the ghost of familiarity that reassures me that this new beginning does not and will not erase the past. After years spent at the top, it’s hard to start over. But surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become. In Taekwondo, we started each class reciting the tenets: honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet. 

The thing about change is that it eventually stops making things so different. After nine different schools, four different countries, three different continents, fluency in Tamil, Norwegian, and English, there are more blurred lines than there are clear fragments. My life has not been a tactfully executed, gold medal-worthy Taekwondo form with each movement defined, nor has it been a series of frappés performed by a prima ballerina with each extension identical and precise, but thankfully it has been like the dynamics of a spinning back kick, fluid, and like my chances of landing a pirouette, unpredictable. 

Why it works:

What’s especially powerful about this essay is that the author uses detailed imagery to convey a picture of what they’re experiencing, so much so that the reader is along for the ride. This works as a sports essay not only because of the language and sensory details, but also because the writer focuses on a specific moment in time, while at the same time exploring why Taekwondo is such an important part of their life.

After the emotional image is created, the student finishes their essay with valuable reflection. With the reflection, they show admissions officers that they are mature and self-aware. Self-awareness comes through with statements like “surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become” and maturity can be seen through the student’s discussion of values “honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet.” These are the kinds of comments that should find their way into a sports essay!

“Advanced females ages 13 to 14 please proceed to staging with your coaches at this time.” Skittering around the room, eyes wide and pleading, I frantically explained my situation to nearby coaches. The seconds ticked away in my head; every polite refusal increased my desperation.

Despair weighed me down. I sank to my knees as a stream of competitors, coaches, and officials flowed around me. My dojang had no coach, and the tournament rules prohibited me from competing without one.

Although I wanted to remain strong, doubts began to cloud my mind. I could not help wondering: what was the point of perfecting my skills if I would never even compete? The other members of my team, who had found coaches minutes earlier, attempted to comfort me, but I barely heard their words. They couldn’t understand my despair at being left on the outside, and I never wanted them to understand.

Since my first lesson 12 years ago, the members of my dojang have become family. I have watched them grow up, finding my own happiness in theirs. Together, we have honed our kicks, blocks, and strikes. We have pushed one another to aim higher and become better martial artists. Although my dojang had searched for a reliable coach for years, we had not found one. When we attended competitions in the past, my teammates and I had always gotten lucky and found a sympathetic coach. Now, I knew this practice was unsustainable. It would devastate me to see the other members of my dojang in my situation, unable to compete and losing hope as a result. My dojang needed a coach, and I decided it was up to me to find one. 

I first approached the adults in the dojang – both instructors and members’ parents. However, these attempts only reacquainted me with polite refusals. Everyone I asked told me they couldn’t devote multiple weekends per year to competitions. I soon realized that I would have become the coach myself.

At first, the inner workings of tournaments were a mystery to me. To prepare myself for success as a coach, I spent the next year as an official and took coaching classes on the side. I learned everything from motivational strategies to technical, behind-the-scenes components of Taekwondo competitions. Though I emerged with new knowledge and confidence in my capabilities, others did not share this faith.

Parents threw me disbelieving looks when they learned that their children’s coach was only a child herself. My self-confidence was my armor, deflecting their surly glances. Every armor is penetrable, however, and as the relentless barrage of doubts pounded my resilience, it began to wear down. I grew unsure of my own abilities.

Despite the attack, I refused to give up. When I saw the shining eyes of the youngest students preparing for their first competition, I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was. The knowledge that I could solve my dojang’s longtime problem motivated me to overcome my apprehension.

Now that my dojang flourishes at competitions, the attacks on me have weakened, but not ended. I may never win the approval of every parent; at times, I am still tormented by doubts, but I find solace in the fact that members of my dojang now only worry about competing to the best of their abilities.

Now, as I arrive at a tournament with my students, I close my eyes and remember the past. I visualize the frantic search for a coach and the chaos amongst my teammates as we compete with one another to find coaches before the staging calls for our respective divisions. I open my eyes to the exact opposite scene. Lacking a coach hurt my ability to compete, but I am proud to know that no member of my dojang will have to face that problem again.

In the beginning, you might think this is another cliche sports essay about overcoming adversity. But instead, it becomes a unique statement and coming-of-age tale that reads as a suspenseful narrative. 

The author connects their experience with martial arts to larger themes in their life but manages to do so without riffing off of tried-and-true themes. Through statements like “I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was” we learn about the students values and their desire to be there for those who depend on them. 

The student also brings it full circle, demonstrating their true transformation. By using the “Same, but Different” ending technique , the student places themself in the same environment that we saw in the intro, but experiences it differently due to their actions throughout the narrative. This is very compelling!

“1…2…3…4 pirouettes! New record!” My friends cheered as I landed my turns. Pleased with my progress, I gazed down at my worn-out pointe shoes. The sweltering blisters, numbing ice-baths, and draining late-night practices did not seem so bad after all. Next goal: five turns.

For as long as I can remember, ballet, in all its finesse and glamor, had kept me driven day to day. As a child, the lithe ballerinas, donning ethereal costumes as they floated across the stage, were my motivation. While others admired Messi and Adele, I idolized Carlos Acosta, principal dancer of the Royal Ballet. 

As I devoted more time and energy towards my craft, I became obsessed with improving my technique. I would stretch for hours after class, forcing my leg one inch higher in an effort to mirror the Dance Magazine cover girls. I injured my feet and ruined pair after pair of pointe shoes, turning on wood, cement, and even grass to improve my balance as I spun. At competitions, the dancers with the 180-degree leg extensions, endless turns, and soaring leaps—the ones who received “Bravos!” from the roaring audience—further pushed me to refine my skills and perfect my form. I believed that, with enough determination, I would one day attain their level of perfection. Reaching the quadruple-pirouette milestone only intensified my desire to accomplish even more. 

My efforts seemed to have come to fruition two summers ago when I was accepted to dance with Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet at their renowned New York City summer intensive. I walked into my first session eager to learn from distinguished ballet masters and worldly dancers, already anticipating my improvement. Yet, as I danced alongside the accomplished ballerinas, I felt out of place. Despite their clean technique and professional training, they did not aim for glorious leg extensions or prodigious leaps. When they performed their turn combinations, most of them only executed two turns as I attempted four. 

“Dancers, double-pirouettes only.” 

Taken aback and confused, I wondered why our teacher expected so little from us. The other ballerinas seemed content, gracing the studio with their simple movements. 

As I grew closer with my Moscow roommates, I gradually learned that their training emphasized the history of the art form instead of stylistic tricks. Rather than show off their physical ability, their performances aimed to convey a story, one that embodied the rich culture of ballet and captured both the legacy of the dancers before them and their own artistry. As I observed my friends more intently in repertoire class, I felt the pain of the grief-stricken white swan from Swan Lake, the sass of the flirtatious Kitri from Don Quijote, and I gradually saw what I had overlooked before. My definition of talent had been molded by crowd-pleasing elements—whirring pirouettes, gravity-defying leaps, and mind-blowing leg extensions. This mindset slowly stripped me from the roots of my passion and my personal connection with ballet. 

With the Bolshoi, I learned to step back and explore the meaning behind each step and the people behind the scenes. Ballet carries history in its movements, from the societal values of the era to each choreographer’s unique flair. As I uncovered the messages behind each pirouette, kick, and jump, my appreciation for ballet grew beyond my obsession with raw athleticism and developed into a love for the art form’s emotive abilities in bridging the dancers with the audience. My journey as an artist has allowed me to see how technical execution is only the means to a greater understanding between dancer and spectator, between storyteller and listener. The elegance and complexity of ballet does not revolve around astonishing stunts but rather the evocative strength and artistry manifested in the dancer, in me. It is the combination of sentiments, history, tradition, and passion that has allowed ballet and its lessons of human connection to become my lifestyle both on and off stage.

This essay is about lessons. While the author is a dancer, this narrative isn’t really about ballet, per se — it’s about the author’s personal growth. It is purposefully reflective as the student shows a nice character arc that begins with an eager young ballerina and ends with a reflection on their past. The primary strength of this essay is the honesty and authenticity that the student approaches it with.

In the end, the student turns a cliche on its head as they embrace the idea of overcoming adversity and demonstrate how the adversity, in this case, was their own stereotypes about their art. It’s beautiful!

“Getting beat is one thing – it’s part of competing – but I want no part in losing.” Coach Rob Stark’s motto never fails to remind me of his encouragement on early-morning bus rides to track meets around the state. I’ve always appreciated the phrase, but an experience last June helped me understand its more profound, universal meaning.

Stark, as we affectionately call him, has coached track at my high school for 25 years. His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running. When I learned a neighboring high school had dedicated their track to a longtime coach, I felt that Stark deserved similar honors.

Our school district’s board of education indicated they would only dedicate our track to Stark if I could demonstrate that he was extraordinary. I took charge and mobilized my teammates to distribute petitions, reach out to alumni, and compile statistics on the many team and individual champions Stark had coached over the years. We received astounding support, collecting almost 3,000 signatures and pages of endorsements from across the community. With help from my teammates, I presented this evidence to the board.

They didn’t bite. 

Most members argued that dedicating the track was a low priority. Knowing that we had to act quickly to convince them of its importance, I called a team meeting where we drafted a rebuttal for the next board meeting. To my surprise, they chose me to deliver it. I was far from the best public speaker in the group, and I felt nervous about going before the unsympathetic board again. However, at that second meeting, I discovered that I enjoy articulating and arguing for something that I’m passionate about.

Public speaking resembles a cross country race. Walking to the starting line, you have to trust your training and quell your last minute doubts. When the gun fires, you can’t think too hard about anything; your performance has to be instinctual, natural, even relaxed. At the next board meeting, the podium was my starting line. As I walked up to it, familiar butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Instead of the track stretching out in front of me, I faced the vast audience of teachers, board members, and my teammates. I felt my adrenaline build, and reassured myself: I’ve put in the work, my argument is powerful and sound. As the board president told me to introduce myself, I heard, “runners set” in the back of my mind. She finished speaking, and Bang! The brief silence was the gunshot for me to begin. 

The next few minutes blurred together, but when the dust settled, I knew from the board members’ expressions and the audience’s thunderous approval that I had run quite a race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough; the board voted down our proposal. I was disappointed, but proud of myself, my team, and our collaboration off the track. We stood up for a cause we believed in, and I overcame my worries about being a leader. Although I discovered that changing the status quo through an elected body can be a painstakingly difficult process and requires perseverance, I learned that I enjoy the challenges this effort offers. Last month, one of the school board members joked that I had become a “regular” – I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Just as Stark taught me, I worked passionately to achieve my goal. I may have been beaten when I appealed to the board, but I certainly didn’t lose, and that would have made Stark proud.

This essay uses the idea of sports to explore a more profound topic—growing through relationships. They really embrace using sports as an avenue to tell the reader about a specific experience that changed the way they approach the world. 

The emphasis on relationships is why this essay works well and doesn’t fall into a cliche. The narrator grows not because of their experience with track but because of their relationship with their coach, who inspired them to evolve and become a leader.

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5 Fantastic Motivational Sporting Speeches

Motivational speeches have been a source of inspiration (and a catalyst for change) for almost as long as humans have existed.

From Alexander the Great, who encouraged his soldiers to stand up and continue fighting after a gruesome battle against the Paurava kingdom in 326 BC to George Washington’s infamous resignation speech in 1784, the use of one’s words and voice to inspire others has shaped history and greatly contributed to the world as we know it today.

In the world of sports, speeches are used to motivate and inspire players, acting as an impetus that drives them to perform at their best.

But motivational sporting speeches are not applicable to athletes alone. The themes that are shared in these speeches are universally relatable, making them relevant to individuals from all walks of life.

Whether it’s overcoming adversity, rising to the challenge or the importance of teamwork, sports players, coaches, and other athletic professionals have an abundance of wisdom to share.

Thus, in today’s blog, we’ll be sharing some of the best sports speeches and quotes from the past. We hope they inspire you as much as they inspire us!

1. Herb Brooks – 1980 Olympic Hockey Pre-Game Speech

Herbert Paul Brooks was a hockey player and coach from Minnesota. He is best known for coaching the U.S. Olympic hockey team in 1980 to one of the greatest upsets in American sports history when they defeated the heavily favored Soviet Union at Lake Placid. The team was not expected to win since the Soviets had defeated the U.S. 10-3 in their final exhibition game at Madison Square Garden. But Brooks was not willing to go down without a fight, giving an extremely powerful speech before his players hit the ice — an address that many of his players credited for the team’s victory. The speech was so memorable and moving it was featured in the blockbuster film, Miracle , with Kurt Russell playing Brooks.

Below is a quote from Brooks’ motivational sports speech:

“Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that’s what you have here, tonight, boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight. One game. If we played ’em ten times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can! Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world. You were born to be hockey players. Every one of you. And you were meant to be here tonight. This is your time. Their time is done. It’s over. I’m sick and tired of hearing about what a great hockey team the Soviets have. Screw ’em. This is your time. Now go out there and take it.”

Click here to watch a clip from the movie Miracle , in which Kurt Russell reenacts this unforgettable moment.

2. Jim Valvano – 1993 ESPY Awards Speech

Many of the world’s most significant speeches came from a place of pain or hardship, and inspirational sports speeches are no different. Jim Valvano, coach of the North Carolina State University basketball team, gave such a speech at the Excellence in Sports Yearly Awards (ESPYs) in 1993 after he’d been diagnosed with a terminal type of glandular cancer. The speech was meant to encourage his audience to live their lives to the fullest and eventually went down in history as one of the most important inspirational coach speeches of all time.

Here is a quote from his lecture:

“There are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.”

You can watch the entire speech on YouTube here .

3. Billy Donovan – 2006 NCAA Championship Game

Billy Donovan was the Florida Gator’s men’s basketball team in 2006— a team that had struggled the year prior. Under Donovan’s guidance, however, they were able to reach the championship game. Before the game started, Donovan spoke to his players, delivering a forceful sermon about seizing the moment.

Below is a quote from his speech, which is considered by many to be one of the most inspirational sports speeches ever given:

“Tonight is not about the past and it’s not about the future. It’s about right now, and you guys have got to want this night to last forever.”

Watch the full clip of Billy Donovan’s pregame speech here .

4. LeBron James – 2018 AAU North Coast Blue Chips Speech

LeBron James is one of the greatest names in NBA history with three championships under his belt and three Olympic gold medals amongst a long list of other achievements. But one of James’ most memorable speeches actually occurred while he was attending his 13-year-old son’s Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) game in 2018. Before the game began, James took the opportunity to share one of his greatest lessons with the young players— that teamwork really does make the dream work. His words instantly became one of his most admired sports inspirational speeches.

Here is a quote from the address:

“Many Hall of Famer’s and some of the best players to ever play the game have come off the bench— or didn’t play. That don’t mean you aren’t good. There are guys in the NBA that don’t play. Does that mean they aren’t good? No. They are playing a role. If you don’t want a role, play tennis or play golf. Because then you can do whatever [expeletive] you want to do, and you’ve got no one else to blame because it’s an individual sport. But if you want to play a team sport, there’s going to be things you’ve got to give up to get what you want.”

You can watch the clip in its entirety here . 

5. Dave Belisle – 2014 Little League World Series Speech

Coaching a team is always a responsibility that mentors take seriously. But when you’re coaching 12-year-old boys, that responsibility becomes even more heartfelt and profound. Dave Belisle knows this first-hand as he was the coach of the Cumberland, Rhode Island team that lost their championship Little League game to Jackie Robinson West of Chicago, Illinois in 2014. Seeing the defeat on his young player’s faces, Belisle gathered his team for some final words, which eventually went down in history as one of the most touching motivational sporting speeches in baseball history.

“The only reason why I’m shedding a tear is because this is the last time I’m going to end up coaching you guys. I’m going to bring back with me, and the coaching staff is going to bring back with them, something that no one other team can provide but you guys. That’s pride. Pride.

You’re going to take that for the rest of your life, what you provided for our town in Cumberland. You had the whole place jumping. You had the whole state jumping. You had New England jumping. You had ESPN jumping. Want to know why? They like fighters. They like sportsmen. They like guys who don’t quit. They like guys who play the game the right way.

If everyone would play baseball like the Cumberland Americans, this would be the greatest game. When you walk around this ballpark in the next couple of days, they’re going to look at you and say, “Hey, guys, you guys were awesome.” 

Watch the entire clip on Youtube here .

Are you looking for athletes who can deliver motivational sporting speeches for your events? Sports Speakers 360 has thousands of athletes from which to choose. Call us today at 303-747-4087 or visit https://www.sportsspeakers360.com .

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Essay Writing Tips, Topics, and Examples

Motivation in Sports Essay

This sample Motivation in Sports Essay is published for informational purposes only. Free essays and research papers, are not written by our writers, they are contributed by users, so we are not responsible for the content of this free sample paper. If you want to buy a high quality essay at affordable price please use our custom essay writing service .

Motivation is continually changing in sports. Sports psychologists often characterize motivation as including direction of effort, intensity of effort, persistence of behavior, and the extent to which an athlete returns on a regular basis to the behavior (referred to as “continuing motivation”). To recognize how individual motivation is developed and to discover the most effective ways to influence motivation, coaches and sports psychologists acknowledge not only characteristics of an athlete but also the social environmental and physical environmental conditions in which the athlete participates. Hence, no single strategy or view is used to explain motivation. The best approach incorporates individual, social environmental, and physical environmental influences on motivation.

Sports psychologists attempt to account for both individual and situational variables that influence an athlete’s motivation. The individual athlete (with his or her gender, race/ethnicity, religion/spirituality, etc.) and his or her interaction with the sports environment (social and physical factors) have a major influence on motivation. Personal factors involved in the interaction of athletes with the sports environment may include physical fitness, physical skill, perceptual skill, and psychological skill.

Furthermore, sports are often rooted in cultural traditions. Where an athlete lives and plays influences motivation. Hence, social factors associated with sports, including the athlete’s roles and responsibilities at work and home, surroundings in which an athlete participates, and family, friends, teammates, and coaches influence motivation. Accordingly, economic conditions, socioeconomic status, and educational and family structures also influence motivation. Moreover, research in sports psychology has identified an athlete’s experiences with cooperation and competition as well as with coaching behavior as additional social factors influencing motivation. Physical environmental factors, including convenient and accessible training facilities, enjoyable scenery, and weather, may also influence motivation.

In order to discuss principles of motivation, we must assume that athletes are actively involved in decision making about what behavior they will engage in. Athletes can choose to behave through the exercise of self-influence. Those actions done intentionally are referred to as “agency.”

To be an agent is to intentionally make things happen by one’s actions. Agency embodies the endowments, belief systems, self-regulatory capabilities and distributed structures and functions through which personal influence is exercised, rather than residing as a discrete entity in a particular place. The core features of agency enable people to play a part in their self-development, adaptation, and self-renewal with changing times. (Bandura 2001, 2)

Behavioral intention is a strong influence on motivation. Intention represents an athlete’s immediate behavioral orientation toward engaging in a sport and reflects the athlete’s motivation toward that sport. Intentions reflect a decision to enact a particular behavior (e.g., attending practice). Intentions for sports summarize an athlete’s motivation to be involved in sports.

An intention is a representation of a future course of action to be performed. It is not simply an expectation or prediction of future actions but a proactive commitment to bringing them about. Intentions and actions are different aspects of a functional relation separated in time. It is, therefore, meaningful to speak of intentions grounded in self-motivators affecting the likelihood of actions at a future point in time. (Bandura 2001, 7)

Hence, we can view intention as a convincing predictor of behavior and influence on motivation.

Self-Efficacy Beliefs

Self-efficacy is a theoretical construct that has received a great deal of support as a significant influence on motivation. Self-efficacy represents a form of situation-specific self-confidence. Self-efficacy is an athlete’s perception of her ability to perform a given task. An athlete’s belief in her capability to exercise some measure of control over her own functioning and over environmental events is central to the athlete’s personal agency. Efficacy beliefs are at the foundation of this personal agency. The likelihood that an athlete will participate in a given sport depends on her beliefs about whether she can perform the skills necessary for that sport. Unless the athlete believes she can produce chosen results by her actions, she has little incentive to act or to persevere in the face of hardship.

Other factors may operate as motivators in sports but must be rooted in the core belief that the athlete has the power to produce effects by her own actions. Athletes with high levels of self-efficacy persevere when faced with obstacles or negative circumstances. In contrast, athletes with low levels of self-efficacy fail to overcome similar obstacles. Efficacy beliefs play a pivotal role in motivation and also influence whether athletes think optimistically or pessimistically. Therefore, efficacy beliefs may enhance or hinder sports motivation.

In addition to self-efficacy, outcome expectations influence motivation. The likelihood that athletes will engage in a behavior (e.g., physical training) depends on their self-efficacy and their outcome expectations (e.g., winning in competition). In examining any theory related to motivation, we must understand the relative importance of the activity to the athlete. In the self-efficacy model a strong relationship exists between doing something and seeing the results. However, the model itself excludes the relative importance of the outcome to the athlete. The expectancy theory proposes that expectations can influence motivation. The first element of expectancy theory is valence or the relative importance of the outcome of the situation.

Knowing what an athlete wants to gain from a certain situation and understanding the relative importance of the outcome are significant parts of the athlete’s motivation. Self-efficacy and outcome expectations are powerful influences on an athlete’s motivation. An expectancy-valence model depends on the athlete’s expectations of reward. Positive expectations

for success produce subsequent positive effects. An athlete’s motivation to achieve something depends on the product of his estimation of his chance of success and the value he places on success. Note that if an athlete does not value the outcome or believes that his probability of success is zero, then his motivation will be insignificant. In addition, under certain circumstances an overly high probability of success can be detrimental to motivation. Athletes form outcome expectations from observing the sports environment in which they participate as well as the outcomes from the actions they take. Athletes pursue courses of action that are likely to produce positive outcomes and avoid courses of action that are likely to produce negative outcomes.

Athletes who believe they have control over events in their lives are more likely to behave in accord with expectancy theory. However, athletes who believe that they are pawns of fate do not. These alternative beliefs are subjective and are referred to as the athletes’ “locus of control.” Locus of control explains how each athlete generally views the source of her outcomes, positive or negative. “Internal locus of control” means that an athlete’s reinforcements and punishments are the result of her resources and own efforts. “External locus of control” means that an athlete’s reinforcements and punishments are the result of outside forces over which she has no control. How she perceives the source of control determines an athlete’s locus of control. An athlete’s subjective locus of control affects how she behaves.

According to expectancy theory, athletes are motivated not only by their goals but also by how attainable they think these goals are. Within this theory three factors help determine an athlete’s motivation: valence, instrumentality, and expectancy. Valence is the satisfaction the athlete anticipates from an outcome. Instrumentality is the perception of that outcome’s relationship to the current performance. Expectancy is the expectation that effort will affect performance. According to this theory, motivation is high when valence is high, instrumentality is clear, and expectancy is strong.

Self-Determination

Athletes with a self-determined motivational profile engage in sports because of personal choice or because they derive pleasure and satisfaction from the experience. Deci and Ryan describe self-determination as a person’s “capacity to choose and to have those choices be the determinants of one’s actions” (Deci and Ryan 1985, 38). To further develop self-determination theory, Valler and proposed the hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. In the model motivation may be intrinsic, extrinsic, or amotivated. “Intrinsic motivation” refers to engaging in sports for the pleasure derived from simply participating. This type of motivation comes from within the athlete regardless of outside influences.

Intrinsically motivated athletes possess greater perceptions of physical competence or participate in sports for the feelings of self-determination, perceptions of control, and satisfaction that the sports provide. Intrinsic motivation is fostered when feelings of competence are increased or perceptions of self-determination and internal control are prominent. Furthermore, sports activity that is perceived to be interesting or challenging, that provides feelings of pleasure and satisfaction, or that is performed for its own sake rather than for external reward induces intrinsic motivation. When the sports activity is perceived to be under one’s internal control, intrinsic motivation is high. Extrinsic motivation, however, results from behavior performed to gain some substantial reward or to avoid negative consequences rather than to reap the inherent pleasure it provides. “Extrinsic motivation” refers to a wide range of behaviors considered to be a means to an end. Extrinsic motivation comes from outside the athlete, most commonly from others through either positive support or negative reinforcements. The fundamental goal of such behaviors is to receive something positive and to avoid something negative. Amotivation is the complete lack of motivation. Feelings of incompetence and lack of control often characterize amotivation.

Enjoyment (a form of intrinsic motivation) is an important influence on sports motivation. Enjoyment based in part on feelings of competence and perceived control is essential for enhancing motivation and continued participation. Athletes continue to participate because they enjoy what they are doing. Feelings of enjoyment clearly play an important role in sports motivation. Athletes who enjoy their chosen sport will stick with it longer than those who do not.

Goal Setting

Goal setting has long been a part of the study of motivation and coaching in sports psychology. Many studies during the last thirty years have supported the effectiveness of goal-setting theory in various sports settings. Goals can be divided into outcome goals, performance goals, and process goals. Research in goal setting indicates that subjects with easy goals usually have higher expectations for reaching their goals but perform worse than do subjects assigned to difficult goals. A relationship between probability of success and incentive value of success appears to exist in that success in an easy task is not valued as highly as success in a difficult one.

Additionally, multiple-goal strategies are advantageous for sports performance when compared with strategies that do not combine different types of goals. Specifically, the benefit of developing a process orientation toward goal setting has been well documented. Process goals are most beneficially used within a hierarchy of goals that should also include performance and outcome goals. The key to this type of goal setting is for the athlete to focus on what she needs to do as opposed to what she wants to happen. Performance and outcome goals can be set with process goals as the means to achieving the desired outcome. Process goals are simply the means chosen to implement performance and outcome goals.

The function of goal setting is to institute and give direction to action. Goals serve as a motivational tool by engaging self-evaluation in the activity itself. Athletes often use journals or training logs as a means of self-evaluation, feedback, and continued motivation. Technological and computer advances allow athletes to record, share, and analyze training information (i.e., heart rates, power output, mileage) with coaches via spreadsheets, databases, and e-mail. Monitoring an athlete’s pattern of performance (e.g., actual physical training) and the cognitive (e.g., mood during training) and environmental conditions (e.g., heat and humidity) under which the training occurs is one step toward affecting performance. Current actions influence future actions through performance comparisons. With this immediate information and feedback available, evaluation based on individual and coaching guidelines gives further direction to athletic pursuits. This evaluation helps athletes sustain their efforts toward further goal achievement and continued motivation. Intentional behavior, such as sports participation, must center on a plan of action. Intentions and goals must be revised and even reconsidered, depending on new information or changes in the sports environment (e.g., level of competition).

Attention to Action

To increase motivation, athletes must use a here-and-now focus. Athletes do well over time when they use a task-oriented approach toward training and competition. Task orientations are associated with intrinsic motivation. Although the past may influence reasons for current behavior (e.g., previous lack of physical conditioning), the past cannot be changed. Furthermore, when an athlete is cognitively focused in the present, expected future events are transformed into current motivators of behavior. When focused in the present, behavior (e.g., daily physical training) is motivated and directed by specific performance and process goals and anticipated outcomes. Athletes must choose to behave and focus in the present (e.g., process goals). One key to reaching full athletic potential is to develop the skill to keep previous successes and failures in perspective and to view things with a here-and-now focus. This here-and-now focus must involve effective concentration on the task at hand.

Having adopted an intention and an action plan, one cannot simply sit back and wait for the appropriate performances to appear. Agency thus involves not only the deliberative ability to make choices and action plans, but the ability to give shape to appropriate courses of action and to motivate and regulate their execution. This multi-faceted self-directedness operates through self-regulatory processes that link thought to action. (Bandura 2001, 9)

Implication

Motivation in sports is continually changing. We must recognize the complexity of individual, social environ-mental, and physical environmental influences on motivation. Agency and the core belief that the athlete has the power to produce effects by his or her own actions are strong influences on motivation. Knowing what an athlete wants to gain from his or her sport and understanding the relative importance of the outcome are significant parts of the athlete’s motivation. To maintain and enhance motivation, the athlete must understand the degree of effort necessary (e.g., training time, intensity) and the relationship among process goals, performance goals, and outcome goals. Understanding how and why each goal can be achieved will aid in motivating the athlete. Motivation is high when valence is high, instrumentality is clear, and expectancy is strong. Athletes are motivated not only by their goals but also by how attainable they think these goals are. An emphasis on establishing realistic and achievable process goals focusing on specific task accomplishments will further enhance the athlete’s feeling of self-confidence and motivation. Constant monitoring with corrective feedback based on goal attainment is also recommended. The combination of knowing what direction the athlete is heading in, what performance level is needed, and what effort is needed often results in high motivation.

References:

• Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.
• Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Annual Reviews of Psychology, 52, 1-26.
• Biddle, S. (Ed.). (1995). European perspectives on exercise and sport psychology. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
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Motivation Measures in Sport: A Critical Review and Bibliometric Analysis

Rachel b. clancy.

1 Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

Matthew P. Herring

2 Health Research Institute, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

Mark J. Campbell

Associated data.

Motivation is widely-researched, in both sport psychology and other fields. As rigorous measurement is essential to understanding this latent construct, a critical appraisal of measurement instruments is needed. Thus, the purpose of this review was to evaluate the six most highly cited motivation measures in sport. Peer-reviewed articles published prior to August 2016 were searched to identify the six most highly cited motivation questionnaires in sport: Sport Motivation Scale (SMS), Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI), Situational Motivational Scale (SIMS), Perceptions of Success Questionnaire (POSQ), Behavioural Regulation in Sport Questionnaire (BRSQ), and Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ). The questionnaires were then evaluated and discussed in four sections: Development, Reliability, Correlates, and Summary. Bibliometric data were also calculated (average weighted impact factor) and assessed (e.g., citations per year) to evaluate the impact of the use of each questionnaire. Despite some variance in their psychometric properties, conceptualization, structure, and utility, the six questionnaires are psychometrically strong instruments for quantifying motivation that are widely supported in the literature. Bibliometric analyses suggested that the IMI ranks first and the SMS ranks sixth according to the average weighted impact factors of their original publications. Consideration of each questionnaire's psychometric strengths/limitations, and conceptualization of motivation in the context of specific research questions should guide researchers in selecting the most appropriate instrument to measure motivation in sport. The average weighted impact factor of each questionnaire is a useful value to consider as well. With these points in mind, recommendations are provided.

Introduction

Motivation can be defined as the force that energizes and directs behavior (Roberts and Treasure, 2001 ). Thus, it comprises the perceived reasons for engaging in an activity. There is utility in studying motivation, as it provides a theoretical and practical insight into why one initiates, regulates, sustains, directs and discontinues behavior. Studies in education (e.g., Dweck, 1986 ; Deci and Ryan, 2016 ), the workplace (e.g., Ambrose and Kulik, 1999 ; Gagné and Deci, 2005 ), health and healthcare (e.g., Carter and Kulbok, 2002 ; Hardcastle and Hagger, 2016 ), physical activity and exercise (e.g., Buckworth et al., 2007 ; Gunnell et al., 2014 ), among other domains, indicate the widespread scale and importance of motivational research. In the area of sport psychology, there is similar interest in the psychological processes that influence behavior, which extends from academia to the playing field.

Motivation is a construct (or latent variable), rather than an observable entity, which contributes to the difficulty in accurately measuring it (Lavallee et al., 2003 ). Many early assessments of motivation were behavioral in nature or relied on participants to provide verbal reports as to why they engaged in a particular activity. For example, Lepper and Greene ( 1975 ) inferred participants' intrinsic motivation by observing their time on task following an experimental intervention. A comparable though less scientific sport-related example is as follows: an athlete who performs extra repetitions in the gym is often perceived by observers as highly motivated, though no measure of motivation has actually taken place. Clearly, methodologically rigorous measurement is needed to assess, understand, and predict the influence of any psychological construct on human behavior (Clancy et al., 2016 ). Thus, critical appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of different measurement approaches is essential for our understanding of motivation, and would enhance researchers and practitioners' awareness of subsequent behavior.

Self-report questionnaires are the most commonly used measurement tools in motivation research, with Mayer et al. ( 2007 ) identifying over 75 questionnaires on motivation between 1930 and 2005. Specifically, in sport psychology, there is a plethora of motivation questionnaires (Clancy et al., 2016 ). Although, previous publications have compared the psychometric properties of two instruments (e.g., Lonsdale et al., 2014 ) or reviewed questionnaires (e.g., Duda and Whitehead, 1998 ; Vallerand and Fortier, 1998 ), there is no contemporary peer-reviewed manuscript that provides a comprehensive evaluation of the most widely used self-report questionnaires of motivation in sport psychology. Bibliometric methods (e.g., Lindahl et al., 2015 ) add depth to such an evaluation by exploring the cited literature in the field. This review sought to address the aforementioned gap by providing a critical appraisal and bibliometric analysis of such measures, and subsequent guidance regarding their use based on the specific research question.

Following ethical approval, six databases were searched in order to identify the most highly cited motivation questionnaires in sport prior to August 2016: Academic Search Complete; Google Scholar; PsycARTICLES; PsycINFO; SPORTDiscus; Web of Science. The search was conducted using the following terms:

(motiv * OR regulat * OR behav * ) AND sport * AND (questionnaire OR measur * OR instrument OR scale).

Reference lists of the obtained articles were searched by hand. The six most highly cited motivation questionnaires in sport were selected for review and are summarized in Table ​ Table1: 1 : the Sport Motivation Scale (SMS; Pelletier et al., 1995 ), the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI; McAuley et al., 1989 ), the Situational Motivational Scale (SIMS; Guay et al., 2000 ), the Perceptions of Success Questionnaire (POSQ; Roberts et al., 1998 ), the Behavioral Regulation in Sport Questionnaire (BRSQ; Lonsdale et al., 2008 ), and the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ; Duda, 1989 ). In order to critically appraise each instrument, further searches were conducted using the questionnaire name combined with test evaluation-related terms (e.g., reliability, psychometric, factor analysis).

Overview of six highly cited motivation measures in sport .

Bibliometric data (Table ​ (Table2) 2 ) were obtained using the Cited Reference Search in Web of Science. The total number of citations of each original publication was reported, as well as the subset with an impact factor. Some sources (e.g., book series, conference proceedings) had no impact factor and, therefore, were excluded from further calculations. The average weighted impact factor for the original publication of each questionnaire was calculated as follows: (1) the number of articles (citations) in each journal was multiplied by the journal's 2015 impact factor; (2) this value for all the journals was summed and then divided by the total number of articles (citations). This process resulted in a single number describing the impact of the use of each questionnaire.

Bibliometric data for six highly cited motivation measures in sport .

In the following sections, each measure will be discussed in order of highest to lowest number of citations per year since the original publication date. Although, the bibliometric data (Table ​ (Table2) 2 ) indicate that the SMS is the most highly cited questionnaire under review (19.5 per year), the average weighted impact factor of the journals accounting for those citations is the lowest (~1.53). The IMI (~1.89) and SIMS (~1.85) have the highest average weighted impact factors, but many of the SIMS citations are in non-sport journals (e.g., International Journal of Engineering Education, Computers in Human Behavior). As such, the IMI could be interpreted as the questionnaire with the highest impact. Bibliometric data are provided in full in Supplementary Tables 1–6 .

In the current review, each measure is evaluated along four domains: (1) the questionnaires are described in Development , which outlines background information, structure, updated versions, scoring, and so forth; (2) reliability is briefly summarized in Reliability . Cronbach's alpha values are reported as a measure of internal consistency, with 0.70 being the acceptable cut-off for research purposes (Nunnally, 1978 ). Where possible, indices of temporal stability and model fit are reported. In line with guidelines from Vincent and Weir ( 1999 ), test-retest correlations and intraclass coefficients are interpreted as high (>0.90), moderate (0.80–0.90) or insufficient (≤ 0.80); (3) findings regarding the associations between questionnaire scores and related variables are provided in Correlates ; and, (4) a synopsis of the aforementioned material is presented in Summary .

Sport motivation scale

Development.

The Echelle de Motivation dans le Sport is a multidimensional and contextual measure of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation toward sport (Briere et al., 1995 ). Pelletier et al. ( 1995 ) used two studies, the first with university athletes and the second with provincial soccer players, to translate and validate this questionnaire into English and, thereby, produce the SMS. The SMS contains seven subscales that measure three types of intrinsic motivation (to know, to accomplish things, to experience stimulation), three types of regulation for extrinsic motivation (identified, introjected, external), and amotivation. Each subscale contains four items, amounting to 28 items in total. In response to criticisms of the SMS, Mallett et al. ( 2007b ) developed the SMS-6, which comprises six subscales. In this measure, the intrinsic motivation subscales were combined into a single subscale, and items were added for integrated regulation, the most self-determined form of extrinsic motivation that was absent from the SMS (Mallett et al., 2007a , b ). However, Pelletier et al. ( 2007 ) did not conclude that the SMS-6 was superior to the SMS, or even that a revision of the measure was needed. Although the SMS has had a “significant impact on the measurement, prediction, and understanding of sport motivation” (Pelletier et al., 2013 , p. 331), a revised version was later developed, namely the SMS-II, to address some of the limitations of the SMS. The 18-item SMS-II, which contains a mix of SMS items and new items, includes a subscale for integrated regulation, and groups the different types of intrinsic motivation into a single subscale.

Scores from the SMS can be provided in three formats. Firstly, a score can be calculated for each subscale, amounting to seven scores per questionnaire. Secondly, subscales can be grouped into broader motivational categories. For example, identified, introjected, and external regulation can be averaged to give one score for extrinsic motivation. Thirdly, a self-determination (or relative autonomy) index can be calculated by assigning weights to each subscale score according to the subscale's position on the self-determination continuum (see Gillet et al., 2010 for an example). Subscale scores (mean followed by standard deviation in parentheses) for the SMS are provided in Table ​ Table3. 3 . Although there is not a children's version of the SMS, it has been found to have adequate internal reliability with youth athletes (Rottensteiner et al., 2015 ).

Sample composition and subscale scores for a range of papers using the SMS .

Reliability

Acceptable internal consistency has been found in most studies using the SMS. Pelletier et al. ( 1995 ) reported Cronbach's alpha values of 0.74–0.80, except for the identified regulation subscale (α = 0.63). Cronbach's alpha values of 0.73–0.90 were reported for Canadian athletes (Fortier et al., 1995 ), 0.72–0.83 for professional rugby players (Cresswell and Eklund, 2005 ), 0.71–0.85 for French judokas (Gillet et al., 2010 ), and 0.65–0.87 for British dancers (Quested and Duda, 2011 ). Mallett et al. ( 2007a ) reported Cronbach's alpha values of 0.78–0.86 for the SMS-6, except for the identified regulation subscale (α = 0.70). Pelletier et al. ( 2013 ) reported Cronbach's alpha values of 0.70–0.88 for the SMS-II. Test-retest correlations for the SMS range from 0.58 to 0.84 (Pelletier et al., 1995 ), which are insufficient to moderate. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to evaluate the seven-factor structure of the SMS (Pelletier et al., 1995 ). Although the chi-square statistic suggests a lack of model fit, other statistics (chi-square/degrees of freedom ratio = 1.94; goodness of fit index = 0.94; the adjusted goodness of fit index = 0.92; root mean square residual = 0.048; normed fit index = 0.92) indicate that the model is acceptable (Pelletier et al., 1995 ).

Multiple types of correlational data support interpreting scores from the SMS as measures of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation. In line with theoretical predictions, the SMS subscale scores correlate with numerous motivational determinants and consequences. For example, amotivation is negatively associated with perceived competence (determinant), and effort (consequence; Pelletier et al., 1995 ). Intrinsic motivation is positively correlated with a coach who provides competence-based feedback, and negatively correlated with distraction (Pelletier et al., 1995 ). Autonomy-supportive coaching positively predicts intrinsic motivation (Pelletier et al., 1995 ; Gillet et al., 2010 ; Quested and Duda, 2011 ). Competitive athletes demonstrate less intrinsic motivation than recreational athletes, reinforcing earlier findings that competition undermines intrinsic motivation due to its emphasis on external rewards (Fortier et al., 1995 ). Intrinsic motivation is significantly negatively associated with key characteristics of burnout, such as sport devaluation and exhaustion (Cresswell and Eklund, 2005 ). Contextual self-determined motivation is significantly correlated with situational self-determined motivation (Gillet et al., 2010 ). Extrinsic regulation positively predicts social physique anxiety among dancers, and amotivation negatively predicts self-esteem (Quested and Duda, 2011 ). Perceived competence is related to autonomous motivation, which positively influences persistence in team sport (Rottensteiner et al., 2015 ).

The available evidence supports using the SMS as a measure of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation in sport. A limitation of the SMS is that it does not assess integrated regulation, though this can be overcome by using the SMS-II. The internal consistency of the identified regulation subscale (α = 0.63) is also below the acceptable threshold (Nunnally, 1978 ). Overall, the SMS is a well-supported, multidimensional questionnaire that is psychometrically sound, brief, and widely used in sport settings.

Intrinsic motivation inventory

The IMI is a multidimensional and situational measure of intrinsic motivation that was first developed for laboratory tasks (Ryan, 1982 ) and then adapted to sport (McAuley et al., 1989 ). Thus, it was originally a non-sport questionnaire that McAuley et al. ( 1989 ) successfully applied in a competitive sport setting using a sample of university physical education students. In its entirety, it contains 45 items across seven subscales: interest/enjoyment, perceived competence, effort, value/usefulness, felt pressure/tension, perceived choice, and relatedness. A smaller number of IMI items can be selected and modified depending on the activity and research question, without adversely affecting the psychometric properties of the measure. In developing the sport version of the IMI, McAuley et al. ( 1989 ) compared two versions containing 16/18 items across four subscales: interest/enjoyment, perceived competence, effort/importance, and pressure/tension. The interest/enjoyment subscale is considered the self-report measure of intrinsic motivation. In contrast, the remaining three subscales account for antecedents (competence) or outcomes (effort/importance, pressure tension) of intrinsic motivation, rather than intrinsic motivation itself. The perceived choice subscale is a common addition to the 16-item version (e.g., Amorose and Horn, 2001 ). Due to the flexible nature of the IMI, any number of subscale scores can be reported depending on the variable of interest. Accordingly, Table ​ Table4 4 shows scores for each subscale (mean followed by standard deviation in parentheses), and indicates that studies often use a smaller selection of subscales, rather than the maximum number of seven (number of items used is indicated for each subscale). There is not a children's version of the IMI but it has been found to have adequate internal reliability with youth samples (Williams and Gill, 1995 ).

Sample composition and subscale scores for a range of papers using the IMI .

In assessing the suitability of the IMI for use in the sport domain, McAuley et al. ( 1989 ) reported Cronbach's alpha values of 0.78–0.84 for three of the subscales, and 0.68 for pressure-tension. The alpha coefficient for the entire measure is 0.85 (McAuley et al., 1989 ), which is acceptable. Cronbach's alpha values of 0.73 (interest/enjoyment) were reported for American physical education students (Williams and Gill, 1995 ), 0.62–0.85 for American college athletes (Amorose and Horn, 2000 ), 0.78 (perceived competence) for British university athletes (Reinboth and Duda, 2006 ), and 0.85/0.90 (perceived competence/effort/importance) for Canadian rugby players (Pope and Wilson, 2012 ). For each subscale, the main effect for time across a competitive season is non-significant, demonstrating temporal stability (Amorose and Horn, 2001 ). The five-factor model of the 16-item IMI was examined using confirmatory factor analysis, and the goodness of fit index (0.788) and coefficient delta (0.76) indicate acceptable fit (McAuley et al., 1989 ).

Multiple types of correlational data support interpreting scores from the IMI as measures of different types of intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic interest/enjoyment has a significant positive association with task orientation and perceived competence, and a negative association with ego orientation (Williams and Gill, 1995 ). Task oriented individuals feel more competent, which leads to greater intrinsic interest and higher effort (Williams and Gill, 1995 ). Scholarship athletes exhibit greater intrinsic motivation than non-scholarship athletes (Amorose and Horn, 2000 ). Specifically, scholarship athletes scored higher on perceived competence than non-scholarship athletes, suggesting that being awarded a scholarship enhances intrinsic motivation by reinforcing perceptions of competence (Amorose and Horn, 2000 ). The influence of coaching style/climate on an athlete's need to feel competent, and the subsequent effects on motivation and effort are well-documented (Reinboth and Duda, 2006 ; Pope and Wilson, 2012 ). Similarly, Amorose and Horn ( 2001 ) found support for the relationship between perceived coaching behaviors and athlete intrinsic motivation.

The available evidence indicates that scores from the IMI can be interpreted as measures of situational intrinsic motivation in sport. Limitations of the IMI are that it predominantly assesses determinants and consequences of intrinsic motivation, rather than intrinsic motivation itself, and there are no subscales for extrinsic motivation or amotivation. Additionally, the internal consistency of the pressure-tension subscale (0.68) is below the acceptable value of 0.70 (Nunnally, 1978 ). Overall, the IMI is a very flexible instrument that affords the researcher the opportunity to select/modify relevant items to assess intrinsic motivation in any sport setting.

Situational motivational scale

The SIMS is a multidimensional and situational measure of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation (Guay et al., 2000 ). It is a state measure (meaning it captures ongoing motivational regulations), focuses on the reasons why people engage in an activity (rather than consequences), and is worded such that it can be used in most settings. It is, however, not specifically a sport questionnaire, meaning it is cited across diverse domains (see Supplementary Table 3 ). Guay et al. ( 2000 ) conducted five studies with university student samples to develop and validate the SIMS, though one of these samples comprised student-athletes. The 16-item scale assesses extrinsic motivation multidimensionally (external and identified regulations), and intrinsic motivation and amotivation as unidimensional constructs. There is also a 14-item version, which may more soundly measure state motivational regulations (Standage et al., 2003 ). Four subscale scores are generally reported in the literature when the SIMS is used (Table ​ (Table5; 5 ; mean followed by standard deviation in parentheses). Although there is not a children's version of the SIMS, it is commonly and successfully used with youth samples (e.g., Podlog et al., 2015 ).

Sample composition and subscale scores for a range of papers using the SIMS .

Internal consistency is largely acceptable for the SIMS. Cronbach's alpha values of 0.62–0.95 and 0.67–0.93 were reported across four studies of college students and one study of collegiate athletes, respectively (Guay et al., 2000 ). Cronbach's alpha values of 0.83–0.90 were reported for American middle school students (Standage and Treasure, 2002 ), 0.69–0.90 for American youth swimmers (Conroy et al., 2006 ), 0.73–0.85 for French judokas (Gillet et al., 2010 ), 0.80–0.82 for Spanish swimmers (Fernandez-Rio et al., 2014 ), and 0.63–0.79 for Swedish junior skiers (Podlog et al., 2015 ). The SIMS has acceptable test-retest reliability, though changes in subscale scores are expected because it is a state measure (Guay et al., 2000 ). Confirmatory factor analysis of the four-factor structure was performed (Guay et al., 2000 ), producing a significant chi-square statistic and a non-normed fit index somewhat lower than the 0.90 cut-off value (Bentler, 1995 ). However, the comparative fit index (0.90) indicates satisfactory model fit (Guay et al., 2000 ).

Multiple types of correlational data support interpreting scores from the SIMS as measures of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation at the situational level. In terms of motivational determinants and consequences, intrinsic motivation and identified regulation are positively associated with perceived competence and autonomy (determinants), and concentration, emotions, task interest and behavioral intentions of future persistence (consequences; Guay et al., 2000 ). The opposite patterns hold true for external regulation and amotivation. Individuals in task-focused experimental conditions report higher intrinsic motivation that those in controlling/reward conditions (Guay et al., 2000 ). Similarly, a task/mastery orientation is positively associated with self-determined motivational profiles (Standage and Treasure, 2002 ; Fernandez-Rio et al., 2014 ). Coach achievement goals affect athletes' achievement goals, which in turn influence their situational motivation (Conroy et al., 2006 ). Contextual self-determined motivation also impacts situational self-determined motivation and subsequent competitive performance (Gillet et al., 2010 ). Self-determined situational motivation serves as a mediator between basic psychological needs and athlete engagement (Podlog et al., 2015 ).

The available evidence supports using the SIMS as a measure of situational intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation in sport. A limitation of the SIMS is that intrinsic motivation is assessed unidimensionally, and two types of extrinsic regulation are absent. Overall, the SIMS is a brief, non-sport-specific measure of multidimensional and situational motivation, which can be applied to sport settings due to its open wording.

Perceptions of success questionnaire

The POSQ is a measure of achievement goals in sport that was first formulated using a sample of sport-playing university students (Roberts et al., 1998 ). In its development, an initial pool of 48 items was reduced to 26, and this version was found to have strong psychometric properties (Roberts et al., 1995 ). In seeking a more parsimonious scale, Roberts et al. ( 1998 ) tested a 16-item version, which was then reduced to 12 items equally divided across two subscales: task and ego orientations. The correlations between the short form and the long form are 0.98 (task) and 0.97 (ego), reinforcing the efficacy of the 12-item version to measure achievement goals in sport. Subscale scores (mean followed by standard deviation in parentheses) for task and ego orientations are provided in Table ​ Table6. 6 . Though the POSQ has demonstrated adequate reliability among youth samples (e.g., Harwood et al., 2004 ), there is also a children's version (Lemyre et al., 2002 ). The original publication found both the adult and children's versions to be reliable and valid instruments (Roberts et al., 1998 ).

Sample composition and subscale scores for a range of papers using the POSQ .

Internal consistency of the POSQ is acceptable. For task and ego orientations, respectively, Cronbach's alpha was reported as 0.82 and 0.87 for American university students (Roberts et al., 1998 ), 0.81 and 0.79 for Norwegian university physical education students (Ommundsen et al., 1998 ), 0.76 and 0.75 for Norwegian Olympians (Pensgaard and Roberts, 2000 ), 0.75 and 0.81 for Norwegian youth soccer players (Lemyre et al., 2002 ), 0.87 and 0.81 for British elite youth athletes (Harwood et al., 2004 ), and 0.83 and 0.91 for Finnish youth athletes (Rottensteiner et al., 2015 ). Test-retest reliability is moderate (0.80 for task and 0.78 for ego) across 1 week (Roberts et al., 1998 ). The two-factor structure was tested using confirmatory factor analysis (Roberts et al., 1998 ). Despite a significant chi-square statistic, the root mean square residual (0.09) and Tucker-Lewis index (0.90) indicate adequate model fit for the POSQ (Roberts et al., 1998 ).

Multiple types of correlational data support interpreting scores from the POSQ as measures of task and ego orientations in sport. Dispositional achievement goals are influenced by the motivational climate, and are related to a host of other variables, such as the perceived purposes of sport, perceived ability, perfectionism, and burnout (Ommundsen et al., 1998 ; Lemyre et al., 2008 ). Situational factors (e.g., motivational climate) influence the sources and levels of distress that athletes experience significantly more than dispositional factors (e.g., goal orientations; Pensgaard and Roberts, 2000 ). Achievement goal orientations affect athletes' sportspersonship attitudes, with a task orientation having a positive effect on moral functioning and an ego orientation decreasing some aspects of sportspersonship (Lemyre et al., 2002 ). Perceived ability moderates the relationship between goal orientation and sportspersonship, particularly for ego-oriented athletes (Lemyre et al., 2002 ). Task orientation is important for acquiring and using psychological skills (e.g., goal setting, imagery), though ego orientation can sometimes be adaptive, in that such athletes often engage in useful strategies to pursue their goals (Harwood et al., 2004 ). Maladaptive motivational profiles, of which an ego orientation is a component, are associated with higher levels of burnout (Lemyre et al., 2008 ). Goal orientations influence autonomous motivation both directly and indirectly (through their effects on perceived competence), and autonomous motivation then affects persistence in sport (Rottensteiner et al., 2015 ).

The available evidence indicates that scores from the POSQ can be interpreted as measures of achievement goals in sport. A potential limitation of the POSQ is its use of a five-point Likert scale, which may afford less sensitivity than a seven-point Likert scale. However, each questionnaire in the review could perhaps be improved if it had an even number of response options and was, therefore, forced-choice. With an odd number of response options, respondents can provide neutral data, which can be uninformative. Overall, the POSQ has strong psychometric properties and is easy to administer due to its brevity.

Behavioral regulation in sport questionnaire

The BRSQ is a contextual measure of competitive sport participants' intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation (Lonsdale et al., 2008 ). The measure was developed as an alternative to the SMS, which Lonsdale et al. ( 2008 ) found to have somewhat questionable psychometric properties. Four studies were used in questionnaire development, all of which had athlete samples; specifically, the participants in studies one and two were elite athletes (Lonsdale et al., 2008 ). Rather than modifying existing items from the SMS (as was the case with the SMS-6 and SMS-II), the BRSQ was created from an entirely new pool of items. In total, it comprises 36 items across nine subscales: four subscales for intrinsic motivation (general, to know, to experience stimulation, to accomplish), four subscales for extrinsically motivated regulations (integrated, identified, introjected, external), and a subscale for amotivation. Two alternative versions were compared by the original authors: the BRSQ-8 contains 32 items across eight subscales, and excludes the unidimensional conceptualisation of intrinsic motivation (intrinsic motivation general); the BRSQ-6 contains 24 items across six subscales, and excludes the tripartite conceptualisation of intrinsic motivation (to know, to experience stimulation, to accomplish). In this way, the BRSQ accounts for the multidimensional and unidimensional conceptualizations of intrinsic motivation, as there are subscales for intrinsic motivation and its three corresponding types. A single global score is usually reported for intrinsic motivation in the literature, whereas extrinsic motivation is broken down into its four components (Table ​ (Table7; 7 ; mean followed by standard deviation in parentheses). The children's version of the questionnaire is valid among youth athletes (Viladrich et al., 2013 ).

Sample composition and subscale scores for a range of papers using the BRSQ .

Internal consistency is acceptable for the nine BRSQ subscales, as Lonsdale et al. ( 2008 ) reported Cronbach's alpha values of 0.71–0.93 across three studies. Cronbach's alpha was reported as 0.73–0.87 for Belgian students from top sport schools (Assor et al., 2009 ), and 0.70–0.93 for Canadian athletes (Lonsdale et al., 2009 ). Test-retest reliability of the subscale scores is supported across a 1-week period, with intraclass coefficients ranging from 0.73 for intrinsic motivation general to 0.90 for integrated regulation and intrinsic motivation to experience stimulation (Lonsdale et al., 2008 ). Confirmatory factor analysis of the six-factor structure was conducted, producing fit statistics that are generally strong (Lonsdale et al., 2008 ), and meet cut-off criteria (root mean square error of approximation ≤ 0.06; comparative fit index ≥0.95; Tucker-Lewis index ≥0.95) suggested by Hu and Bentler ( 1999 ). Acceptable model fit has also been demonstrated among dancers (Hancox et al., 2015 ).

Multiple types of correlational data support interpreting scores from the BRSQ as measures of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation. Autonomous subscale scores are positively correlated with dispositional flow (Lonsdale et al., 2008 ), and negatively correlated with burnout (Lonsdale and Hodge, 2011 ; Holmberg and Sheridan, 2013 ). Burnout may also precede reductions in self-determined extrinsic motivation (Lonsdale and Hodge, 2011 ). Identified regulation is associated with a more positive pattern of affective and performance correlates (e.g., positive affect, vitality, interindividual performance, intraindividual progress) than introjected regulation (Assor et al., 2009 ). Furthermore, when valence is considered, introjected avoidance motivation is related to a more negative pattern of correlates than introjected approach motivation (Assor et al., 2009 ).

The available evidence supports using the BRSQ as a measure of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation in sport. A potential limitation of the BRSQ is that it was designed for use among competitive athletes, thus making it unsuitable for exercise or physical activity settings. This specificity, however, could also be interpreted as a strength. Overall, the BRSQ is an accurate and flexible instrument that facilitates unidimensional and multidimensional measurement through its various versions/subscales.

Task and ego orientation in sport questionnaire

The TEOSQ is an adaptation of an inventory created for scholastic settings (Nicholls, 1989 ) that assesses individual differences in the proneness for task and ego involvement in sport (Duda, 1989 ). One study comprising a sample of high school students was used in this process (Duda, 1989 ). Using 13 items across two subscales, the TEOSQ assesses personal dispositions that are relatively stable (but not fixed) over time. Task scores are typically higher and more stable than ego scores (Duda and Whitehead, 1998 ). Subscale scores (mean followed by standard deviation in parentheses) for the TEOSQ are provided in Table ​ Table8, 8 , and readers are directed to Duda and Whitehead ( 1998 ) for a table of subscale scores for papers between 1989 and 1997. The TEOSQ has been successfully used for both youth (e.g., Williams and Gill, 1995 ) and adult (e.g., Lameiras et al., 2014 ) samples.

Sample composition and subscale scores for a range of papers using the TEOSQ .

M, male; F, female; values are mean (standard deviation) .

The TEOSQ has acceptable internal consistency. For the task and ego subscales, respectively, Cronbach's alpha is 0.82 and 0.89 among high school basketball players (Duda, 1989 ), 0.84 and 0.86 for American middle school students (Williams and Gill, 1995 ), 0.88 and 0.82 for elite soccer players (Van-Yperen and Duda, 1999 ), 0.76 and 0.84 for British university athletes (Ntoumanis, 2001 ), 0.83 and 0.82 for Portuguese professional athletes (Lameiras et al., 2014 ), and 0.84 and 0.81 for Scottish athletes (Allen et al., 2015 ). Test-retest reliability of the subscale scores was reported as 0.58 (task) and 0.67 (ego) across one soccer season, which is insufficient (Van-Yperen and Duda, 1999 ). Numerous investigations containing confirmatory factor analyses support the two-factor structure of the TEOSQ (Duda and Whitehead, 1998 ).

Multiple types of correlational data support interpreting scores from the TEOSQ as measures of task and ego orientations in sport. Task orientation is positively associated with beliefs that sport should enhance self-esteem, and encourages effort, mastery, cooperation and rule-following (Duda, 1989 ). In contract, ego orientation positively predicts views about the extrinsic benefits and personal gains afforded by sport (Duda, 1989 ), and is positively associated with stronger pro-doping attitudes (Allen et al., 2015 ). The association between task orientation and cooperation/prosocial behavior was also reported by Lameiras et al. ( 2014 ). There are direct and positive links between task orientation, perceived competence, intrinsic motivation/interest and effort (Williams and Gill, 1995 ). Task orientation is also related to the belief that effort contributes to achievement, whereas ego-oriented athletes believe that ability/talent determines success (Van-Yperen and Duda, 1999 ). There is a further link between task orientation and season-long performance improvement (Van-Yperen and Duda, 1999 ). Ntoumanis ( 2001 ) found that task orientation predicts motivational variables high in self-determination, whereas ego orientation predicts the opposite.

The available evidence indicates that scores from the TEOSQ can be interpreted as measures of task and ego goal orientation in sport. As with the POSQ, a potential limitation of the TEOSQ is its use of a five-point Likert scale, which offers fewer response options than a seven-point Likert scale. Additionally, the test-retest reliabilities are low. The TEOSQ is a psychometrically sound instrument for measuring dispositional goal orientations that has been used extensively in sport settings without argument for any revisions.

This review set out to evaluate the six most highly cited motivation measures in sport. Each questionnaire attempts to capture the reasons underlying behavior in the sport domain, thereby assessing motivation in a broad sense. However, there is a distinctive difference between how motivation is conceptualized in each questionnaire. The SMS, IMI, SIMS, and BRSQ consider intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and/or amotivation. In contrast, the POSQ and TEOSQ adopt a goal perspective approach in their measurement of motivation. It is important to note that this distinction does not confer an advantage to one type of questionnaire over another. Rather, it is simply an essential element for the researcher to consider prior to deliberating the relative merits of a particular questionnaire. Should a researcher wish to quantify intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, the SMS, IMI, SIMS, or BRSQ would be suitable. In contrast, a researcher who would like to account for personal goals in their measurement of motivation may priorities the POSQ or TEOSQ. In addition to conceptualization, differences in development, scoring, and youth administration should be deliberated when appraising motivation measures in sport. Bibliometric data can also be useful for indicating the impact of the use of a specific questionnaire, though other methodological features and research design issues must also be considered (Clancy et al., 2016 ). In the current review, the IMI ranks first and the SMS ranks sixth according to their average weighted impact factors.

In terms of development, there are three distinct groups among the six questionnaires. First, the SIMS stands alone because it is not a sport-specific questionnaire, though it can be adapted for that purpose. Next, the IMI was originally a non-sport questionnaire, but it was modified for the sport domain, which is the version included in this review. Thirdly, the remaining four questionnaires were created specifically for sport. In addition to these distinctions, there are differences in development based on the sample used in the original publications. Five of the publications (SMS, IMI, SIMS, POSQ, TEOSQ) comprised student samples, four at university-level and one at high school-level, which could be indicative of convenience sampling. In contrast, the BRSQ was developed from data from elite and non-elite athletes, which may have been advantageous when developing a measure for this group. Scoring procedures for each questionnaire are straightforward, though the SMS provides more flexibility because subscale scores can be combined to give a single global score, which is frequently reported in the literature and contributes to its ease of use. Thus, while all of the measures provide component scores, only the SMS offers an established method for producing a single score for each participant. As a final comparison, the POSQ and BRSQ have children's versions available, which is ideal when examining youth samples. The remaining four questionnaires, however, have adequate internal reliability when administered to children, indicating their utility among participants of all ages.

The reviewed instruments account for the different conceptualizations of motivation, and are applicable at either the contextual or situational level. Although they vary in their development, scoring, and administration, the conceptualization and level of applicability are likely the most important considerations for researchers selecting a questionnaire. The SMS and BRSQ assess intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation at the contextual level, and allow for intrinsic motivation to be measured as a unidimensional or multidimensional construct. Next, the IMI and SIMS adopt contrasting approaches to measuring situational motivation. The IMI facilitates an in-depth view of situational intrinsic motivation only, whereas the SIMS quantifies intrinsic motivation (unidimensionally), extrinsic motivation, and amotivation. Lastly, the POSQ and TEOSQ assess task and ego goal orientations in sport. It is clear that researchers have several questionnaires to choose from when attempting to answer a specific research question. Although each of the questionnaires reviewed here has limitations, they predominantly exhibit strong psychometric properties and are widely used, reinforcing their utility for measuring the underlying why of behavior in sport.

Valid and reliable measurement is a precursor to the understanding of any psychological construct. Although an unobservable variable can be challenging to measure, the enduring interest of researchers and practitioners in motivation has resulted in the development of numerous instruments for quantifying it. The six questionnaires are psychometrically strong self-report tools for assessing motivation that emerged between the late 1980s and late 2000s, and continue to be widely cited in sport psychology. As previously mentioned, there are clear distinctions between the questionnaires that make them applicable to certain research questions and not others. When considered as a group, however, the IMI has the greatest impact in terms of its use. The SMS ranks sixth in this regard, though it is the most highly cited instrument under review. It is evident that bibliometric analysis enhances the ability to critically appraise questionnaires, and moves understanding beyond simple description. As such, the current review contributes to the field of sport psychology by filling a gap in measurement-related literature, and providing objective guidance for researchers and practitioners who wish to quantify motivation. It may also indicate fruitful avenues for the development of future questionnaires or alternative methods to assess motivation in sport.

Author contributions

RC, MH, and MC have satisfied all the criteria for authorship: substantially contributing to the reviews conception and interpretation; drafting and revising the work; approving the version to be published; agreeing to be accountable for the work.

This work was supported by the Irish Research Council [GOIPG/2015/2665].

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00348/full#supplementary-material

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Home > Resources > Study > Scholarships > Types > Sports > Writing

How to Write a Sports Scholarship Application Essay

Writing sport-related admission essays can be quite challenging for enrollees. Athletes think that they can only perform their sport and can't write about it, but that is a myth. Some students may just need help in increasing their creativity in their writing. For this purpose, they can visit various student blogs and guides to say, "now I finally know how to write my essay properly." We are here to give ideas on how to write about sports and show you our seven great tips you can use for your scholarship application.

1. Make Contact with the college essay adviser

There are many myths about what you can and can't do in a sports scholarship application essay. Ask your college admission consultant about the specific requirements you should follow preparing a sports scholarship essay. Consider the word limit, formatting style, and other details.

2. Create your story

There are many ways to enliven your sports essay. For example, you can tell how you have learned to accept constructive criticism by watching your game recordings while waiting for feedback from your team peers or trainer. Also, you can write about your feelings when you dance as a cheerleader.

Some students ignore the importance of their achievements in sports, but at the same time, so many students have sports-related experiences that have left a deep impact on their lives. Read the unique stories of others or find out about them on YouTube to get powerful inspiration for your own topic.

3. Write an unexpected essay

You can't just write an essay about sports that anyone else could write. Therefore, avoid cliches and just repetition of other stories because your unique story definitely exists. Sometimes, enrollees simply can't remember it, so dedicate time to explore ideas and help your memory. Avoid generalities in a sports scholarship application - be specific and personal enough even if you think you are not successful enough in sports.

4. Isolate Details

Actually, there is no need to describe an entire game process or explain rules to your reader. Your admissions are not interested in how you follow the rules but how you break them. The same concerns your essay: break the rules! Write about your routine actions that brought you to victory. For instance, you can tell how your transport to training sessions affects the result. Maybe you are listening to a special playlist that stimulates your mind or read a book that helps you concentrate on the positive aspects of your sports.

5. Think Smaller

It is not necessary to be a literature expert to create an engaging essay. Admission officers can feel the sincerity in your writing and read between the lines. Make the accent not on the literary tools but the meaning of your story. Write about the simplest thing that affects your decision to dedicate your life to a sport. It could be a clothing uniform that brings you luck or a fan in a crowd that encouraged you. See where details take you!

6. Develop out-of-frame thinking

Look at the subject of sports through a different lens! Excellent sports scholarship application essays are never about sports. They are about underlying personality characteristics that make you good at what you do. Reflect on things that make you more determined and a valuable solo player or member of a team. Think about details that reveal how you've contributed to communities you care about in the past and how that may translate to the university campus you apply to.

7. Sound Convincing

Write about sports in your life even if it is an ordinary one. You are the only author of your essay, so you have full power to tell a unique story. Do you remember that feeling when you've read someone's story, and it touched you? The same could be for the story of your scholarship application. Simply don't concentrate on the result only, but on the process itself.

We wish you good luck in your preparation for the admission process and hope your essay is an outstanding one!

Related Pages

• College Scholarships — all you need to know
• Do's and Don'ts of Writing a College Application Essay — a guide with helpful insights and practical tips on crafting an impactful and compelling essay.
• Tips for Writing an Essay on Sports: A Student's Guide — steps towards a great sports essay
• Index to courses in sports
• Fields of Study — the large range of areas of study within the field of sports and sport sciences.
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• Country list for courses
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Motivation In Sports Psychology

Motivation is essential ingredient to be success in and out of the sports. It is a psychological driver of change that control the achievement behavior of the team (Tenenbaum & Eklund, 2007, p. 3). In sports psychology context, the motivation theory widely emerged to achievement goal strategy. In this essay, the application of sports psychology theory will be illustrated in line with the event of a person who joined a voluntary project of selling vegetables of farmer mothers through an online platform in Indonesia. The project was addressed for university humanitarian action in response to the volcano eruption disaster refugees’ relief program in 2010. The project involved 5 members with interdisciplinary: psychology and training, agriculture, …show more content…

Of any kind motivation they instinctively from, it is strongly correlated to which extent they perceive self-determination. It means that the stronger motivation can reflect the higher self-determination they would applied to the performance, task or challenges (Moran and colleagues, 2012, p.361). Related to the story, the man who works for IT job, personally did not really interested in the social voluntary activity and more interested in his personal professional career building as a fresh graduate at that moment. In the beginning, he did not see valuable of joining the project but then the team brought him idea that he actually able to use the project as a portfolio for his own employment branding. In this situation, he has lower intrinsic motivation but higher extrinsic …show more content…

4). IT-related job, as his responsibility, was the last chain of the project goal setting. The first chain is training session continue with farming session. Afterward, the vegetables should be sold to the market through online as the application of business marketing idea. If we compare to the analogy of soccer game, he is the one that responsible to shoot the ball to the gate for make the score. Enable to execute the motivation into a process is the essential principle of achievement goal theory (Duda & Nicholls, 1992). In the story, he understood the responsibility and agreed to execute the IT-related task. In the goal setting, he contributed explaining the detail step of work to make the online market platform. Formerly, Nicholls (1984) identifies task and ego involvement as the general operation of ability concept. The task-involvement individuals are developed by mastery, improvement or learning and they also perceive success as that mastery or enhancements attained. While the ego-involvement, in the other hand, establish ability relative to others or to outperform others. Back to the story context, he was more focus on his task involvement ability. Nonetheless, since he did not wholeheartedly motivate himself about the project, he had

What Is The Theme Of Remember Why You Play By David Thomas

In his book "Remember Why You Play," David Thomas tells moving tales of coaches, players, and parents who teach readers important lessons about sportsmanship and character. The book places a strong emphasis on the idea that, in sports, playing well is more important than really succeeding. Beyond the world of sports, the lessons given in the book are both insightful and useful. " Remember Why You Play" emphasizes the value of sportsmanship, which is one of the main lessons to be learned. Thomas emphasizes throughout the book that being a good sport, rather than just winning, is the key to real sporting success.

Influences In Poe's The Masque Of The Red Death

Poe’s Life Influences in The Masque of the Red Death As Poe put it, “the boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?” He is very correct indeed (“The Premature Burial”, n.d, para. 3). Just like his books which are chilling and mysterious so was his life.

Should Children Receive Trophies Just For Participating Essay

Should Children Receive Trophies Just For Participating? What are trophies? They are memorable tokens that symbolize hard work and excellence. They are symbols of winners who worked hard to try and reach their goal.

Sport Psychologists And Social Climate Differences

Sport Psychologists have studied not only how goal orientations and perceived ability work together to influence motivation of physical activity participants, but also how the social climate influences one’s goal orientations and motivation level (Ntoumanis & Biddle, 1999). Some psychologists now contend, for example, that the social climates of achievement settings can vary significantly in several dimensions. These include such things as the tasks that learners are asked to perform, student-teacher authority patterns, recognition systems, student ability groupings, evaluation procedures, and ties allotted for activities to be performed (Ames, 1992). Most importantly, researchers have found that motivational climate influence that the types

Essay On Leadership In Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson said, "You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand" (Haden, Web). In this quote, Wilson is critiquing the idea of simply enduring the motions of life. As a leader, he is encouraging the pursuit of purpose and optimism in all aspects of life: both intellectually and interpersonally.

Pursuit Of Happyness Analysis

If people can’t do something, for sure they will tell you can’t do it too. And if you want something, go and get it. (Will Smith Movie Quotes That Will Motivate You Through Adversity, n.d.). Motivation can further divided into two subtypes which are intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the motivation that comes from inner side of one self and urges him in doing something no matter what is the external reward given.

Persuasive Speech: The Benefits Of Competitive Sports

“In the U.S., about 30 million children and teens participate in some form of organized sports, and more than 3.5 million injuries each year” claims Stanford Children’s Health. It’s definitely true that competitive sports can cause all sorts of injuries from big to small. The media teaches people simply that sports leads to horrific injuries and can cause stress, but what the mainstream media hardly discusses are the great benefits of competitive sports. While there may be some negatives to competitive sports, that’s just life, and to add on to that; there are plenty of benefits which are sure to override to media’s facts. Kids should play competitive sports because competitive sports teach children powerful life lessons, contributes to their social and mental stability, and because of the physical gain competitive sports provides.

The Definition Of Motivation In The Movie Coach Carter

“Motivation supports leaders to achieve the objectives through goal-oriented characteristics and pushes individuals to work hard at achieving the highlighted goals. “ Is the definition of motivation according to (Anon., 2012) According to (Carter. D, 2007) there are two primary types of motivation; extrinsic and intrinsic. In the movie coach carter, Coach Ken Carter uses intrinsic motivation as he is motivated and driven by his passion for basketball.

Becoming A Sport Psychologist Essay

Have you wondered why many athletes who deal with serious problems, seem to succeed? Their success is mostly the result of a the sport psychologist, who is working with them to improve their mental state. Sport psychologists take a caring approach on personal and public matters. Studies have shown the various outcomes of using a sport psychologist, in many different sports. This is why there is usually a person behind the athlete in any sport, whether it is a sport psychologist and or a role model.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Self-Determination Theory

INTRODUCTION Self-Determination Theory (SDT) was conceived by Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan. This theory is concerned with human motivation, personality, and optimal functioning. For the purpose of SDT and work motivation, motivation is considered the core of biological, cognitive, and social regulation. Instead of just looking at the amount of motivation, self-determination theory focuses on different types of motivation.

Essay On Sports And Mental Health

You feel relaxed when you're with your friends, and when you're doing something that you enjoy doing. However, one side reasons why sports bring many together and connect is maybe they might want the same goal at the end to win a event or make a meaningful memory with others. By participating in a sport, or multiple sports, it can have a positive impact on one’s

Benefit Of Sports Psychology Essay

Your mind controls how you feel and how you deal with things, do you ever wonder if you can seek help with that? Merriam Webster defines psychology as “ the study of mind and behavior in relation to a particular field of knowledge or activity” Sports psychologists main focal point in the line of work is to improve and help an individual to excel in sports. A mindset is the core of all studies and actions. Sports psychologists discover the needs and desire of athletes for which they interpret it and find a solution. In most cases, athletes need motivation and help to overcome psychological issues, whether they are personal or limiting in their vocation.

Importance Of Problem Solving In Nursing

In fact, individual emotional and motivational aspects should be considered [17]. Motivation is defined as a desire to make an attempt in order to perform duties and responsibilities and to use individual skills [18]. Academic motivation refers to behaviors that lead to learning and improvement [19]. It includes the tendency to perform well and to spontaneously evaluate one's own performance. Experts have devided motivation into two main groups, namely intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Theories Of Motivation In Nestle

Motivation refers to the process by which a person’s efforts are energized, directed, and sustained towards attaining a goal. This definition contains three main elements which are energy, direction and persistence. Firstly, energy element is a measure of intensity or drive as how much does the motivated person tried. For direction, it states that the employees` effort that directed toward, and consistent with, target organizational goals of their company. Finally, motivation includes a persistence dimension which persist them in putting effort to achieve the goals.

Two Dimensions Of Motivation At Workplace

Motivation at workplace There are two dimensions of motivation; internal and external. Internal motivation refers to personal interest in doing something and external motivation refers to be persuaded by someone’s activity. The characteristics of motives are identified as: individualistic, changing, may be unconscious, often inferred, and hierarchical (Reece, 2014). Most important fact to understand motivation is the theories. Many motivational theories have been developed over time to study human behavior at the workplace.

More about Motivation In Sports Psychology

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Essay on Benefits of Sports

Students are often asked to write an essay on Benefits of Sports in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Benefits of Sports

Introduction.

Sports play a significant role in our lives. They are more than just games; they teach us important life lessons and have numerous benefits.

Physical Health

Engaging in sports helps maintain a healthy body. It strengthens muscles, improves heart health and boosts the immune system.

Mental Well-being

Sports also enhance mental health. They reduce stress, improve mood and promote better sleep.

Social Skills

Playing sports helps develop social skills. It encourages teamwork, cooperation, and communication with others.

250 Words Essay on Benefits of Sports

Sport, an integral part of human culture and society, is often viewed purely as a source of entertainment. However, it offers a multitude of benefits that extend well beyond the confines of a playing field or court.

Participation in sports contributes significantly to physical health. It helps maintain a healthy weight, combats health conditions and diseases, and promotes better sleep. Sports also enhance muscular strength, flexibility, and the efficiency of the heart and lungs, all contributing to improved physical health and well-being.

Sports also have a profound impact on mental health. They help reduce stress, anxiety, and depression by releasing endorphins that act as natural mood lifters. Furthermore, the focus and concentration required in sports enhance cognitive abilities, including problem-solving and decision-making skills.

Engaging in sports fosters social skills. Team sports, in particular, promote cooperation, communication, and empathy as individuals work towards a common goal. This interaction nurtures a sense of belonging and helps build strong social networks.

Life Skills

Sports instill valuable life skills. They teach discipline, time management, and responsibility. Additionally, dealing with wins and losses in sports develops resilience and the ability to cope with life’s ups and downs.

500 Words Essay on Benefits of Sports

Sports, often considered a means of entertainment, play a far more significant role in our lives than we usually acknowledge. They are not just about winning medals or achieving personal bests; they are about character building, health enhancement, and fostering social connections. This essay aims to delve into the multifaceted benefits of sports, extending from the individual to societal level.

Physical Health Benefits

Engaging in sports is instrumental in maintaining physical health. Regular physical activity helps to control weight, combat health conditions and diseases, and improve overall bodily functions. It enhances cardiovascular fitness, builds strong bones and muscles, and boosts endurance. For instance, sports like swimming provide a full-body workout, improving heart and lung efficiency, while weight-bearing sports like running can increase bone density, reducing the risk of osteoporosis.

Mental Health Benefits

Social benefits.

Sports also serve as a social platform, fostering a sense of community and belonging. Team sports, in particular, promote cooperation, communication, and understanding, essential skills not just on the field but in everyday life. They cultivate a sense of teamwork, teaching individuals the importance of working together towards a common goal.

Character Development

Character development is another significant benefit of sports. They teach essential life skills such as discipline, responsibility, self-confidence, sacrifice, and accountability. Sports offer a platform for learning how to deal with success and failure. They instill resilience, encouraging individuals to keep striving for their goals despite setbacks.

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What Is Sports Psychology? 9 Scientific Theories & Examples

And maintaining focus when your team is behind and heading into the final few minutes of the game requires mental toughness.

Sports are played by the body and won in the mind, says sports psychologist Aidan Moran (2012).

To provide an athlete with the mental support they need, a sports psychologist considers the individual’s feelings, thoughts, perceived obstacles, and behavior in training, competition, and their lives beyond.

This article introduces some of the key concepts, research, and theory behind sports psychology and its ability to optimize performance.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients create actionable goals and master techniques to create lasting behavior change.

This Article Contains:

What is sports psychology, 4 real-life examples, 5 theories and facts of sports psychology, why is sports psychology important, brief history of sports psychology, top 4 sports psychology podcasts, positivepsychology.com’s helpful resources, a take-home message.

“Sport psychology is about understanding the performance, mental processes, and wellbeing of people in sporting settings, taking into account psychological theory and methods.”

Meijen, 2019

Sports psychology is now widely accepted as offering a crucial edge over competitors. And while essential for continuing high performance in elite athletes, it also provides insights into optimizing functioning in areas of our lives beyond sports.

As a result, psychological processes and mental wellbeing have become increasingly recognized as vital to consistently high degrees of sporting performance for athletes at all levels where the individual is serious about pushing their limits.

Indeed, as cognitive scientist Massimiliano Cappuccio (2018) writes, “physical training and exercise are not sufficient to excel in competition.” Instead, key elements of the athlete’s mental preparation must be “perfectly tuned for the challenge.”

For example, in recent research attempting to understand endurance limits , psychological variables have been confirmed as the deciding factor in ceasing effort rather than muscular fatigue (Meijen, 2019). The brain literally limits the body.

Beyond endurance, mental processes are equally crucial in other aspects of sporting success, such as maintaining focus, overcoming injury, dealing with failure, and handling success.

As psychologists, we can help competitors enhance their performance by “providing advice on how to be their best when it matters most” (Moran, 2012).

Pushing from within

As long ago as 2008, Tiger Woods confirmed the importance of his mental strength and ability to push himself from within (Moran, 2012):

“It’s not about what other people think and what other people say. It’s about what you want to accomplish and do you want to go out there and be prepared to beat everyone you play or face?”

And golf experts agree. While Tiger Woods’s natural gifts are self-evident, you can never count him out when he is losing, because of his robust mindset. He is always prepared and always has a plan (Bastable, 2020).

Vision and the right mindset will overcome

When sports scientist and motivational expert Greg Whyte met Eddie Izzard, the British comedian didn’t even own a pair of running shoes. Yet Whyte had six weeks to prepare her for the monumental challenge of running 43 consecutive marathons.

Vision, belief, science-led training, psychological support, and Izzard’s epic degree of determination were the essential ingredients that resulted in success (Whyte, 2015).

Reframing arousal

When sports psychologist John Kremer was approached by an international sprinter complaining that pre-race anxiety was impacting his races, he took time to understand what he was experiencing and how it felt.

Kremer helped reframe the athlete’s perception of his pounding heart from stress negatively affecting his performance to being primed and ready for competition (Kremer, Moran, & Kearney, 2019).

Visualizing success

Diver Laura Wilkinson broke three bones in her foot in the lead-up to the U.S. trials for the 2000 Olympics.

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Sports psychology is not one theory, but the combination of many overlapping ideas and concepts that attempt to understand what it takes to be a successful athlete.

Indeed, in many sports, endurance in particular, there has been a move toward more multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, looking at the interactions between psychological, biomechanical, physiological, genetic, and training aspects of performance (Meijen, 2019).

With that in mind, and considering the many psychological constructs affecting performance in sports, the following areas are some of the most widely studied:

• Mental toughness
• Goal setting
• Anxiety and arousal

1. Mental toughness

Coaches and athletes recognize mental toughness as a psychological construct vital for performance success in training and competition (Gucciardi, Peeling, Ducker, & Dawson, 2016).

Mental toughness helps maintain consistency in determination, focus, and perceived control while under competitive pressure (Jones, Hanton, & Connaughton, 2002).

While much of the early work on mental toughness relied on the conceptual understanding of the related concepts of resilience and hardiness, reaching an agreed upon definition has proven difficult (Sutton, 2019).

Mentally tough athletes are highly competitive, committed, self-motivated , and able to cope effectively and maintain concentration in high-pressure situations. They retain a high degree of self-belief even after setbacks and persist when the going gets tough (Crust & Clough, 2005; Clough & Strycharczyk, 2015).

After interviewing sports professionals competing at an international level, Jones et al. (2002) found that being mentally tough takes an unshakeable self-belief in the ability to achieve goals and the capacity and determination to bounce back from performance setbacks.

Mental toughness determines “how people deal effectively with challenges, stressors, and pressure… irrespective of circumstances” (Crust & Clough, 2005). It is made up of four components, known to psychologists as the “four Cs”:

• Feeling in control  when confronted with obstacles and difficult situations
• Commitment  to goals
• Confidence  in abilities and interpersonal skills
• Seeing challenges as opportunities

For athletes and sportspeople, mental toughness provides an advantage over opponents, enabling them to cope better with the demands of physical activity.

Beyond that, mental toughness allows individuals to manage stress better, overcome challenges, and perform optimally in everyday life.

2. Motivation

Motivation has been described as what maintains, sustains, directs, and channels behavior over an extended amount of time (Ryan & Deci, 2017). While it applies in all areas of life requiring commitment, it is particularly relevant in sports.

Not only does motivation impact an athlete’s ability to focus and achieve sporting excellence, but it is essential for the initial adoption and ongoing continuance of training (Sutton, 2019).

While there are several theories of motivation, the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) has proven one of the most popular (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2017).

Based on our inherent tendency toward growth, SDT suggests that activity is most likely when an individual feels intrinsically motivated, has a sense of volition over their behavior, and the activity feels inherently interesting and appealing.

Optimal performance in sports and elsewhere occurs when three basic needs are met: relatedness, competence, and autonomy (Ryan & Deci, 2017).

3. Goal setting and focus

Setting goals is an effective way to focus on the right activities, increase commitment, and energize the individual (Clough & Strycharczyk, 2015).

Goal setting is also “associated with increased wellbeing and represents an individual’s striving to achieve personal self-change, enhanced meaning, and purpose in life” (Sheard, 2013).

A well-constructed goal can provide a mechanism to motivate the individual toward that goal. And something big can be broken down into a set of smaller, more manageable tasks that take us nearer to achieving the overall goal (Clough & Strycharczyk, 2015).

Athletes can use goals to focus and direct attention toward actions that will lead to specific improvements; for example, a swimmer improves their kick to take 0.5 seconds off a 100-meter butterfly time or a runner increases their speed out of the blocks in a 100 meter sprint.

Goal setting can define challenging but achievable outcomes, whatever your sporting level or skills.

A specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound (SMART) goal should be clear, realistic, and possible. For example, a runner may set the following goal:

Next year, I want to run the New York City Marathon in three hours by completing a six-month training schedule provided by a coach .

4. Anxiety and arousal

Under extreme pressure and in situations perceived as important, athletes may perform worse than expected. This is known as choking and is typically caused by being overly anxious (Kremer et al., 2019).

Such anxiety can have cognitive (erratic thinking), physical (sweating, over-breathing), and behavioral (pacing, tensing, rapid speech) outcomes. It typically concerns something that is not currently happening, such as an upcoming race (Moran, 2012).

It is important to distinguish anxiety from arousal . The latter refers to a type of bodily energy that prepares us for action. It involves deep psychological and physiological activation, and is valuable in sports.

Therefore, if psychological and physiological activation is on a continuum from deep sleep to intense excitement , the sportsperson must aim for a perceived sweet spot to perform at their best. It will differ wildly between competitors; for one, it may be perceived as unpleasant anxiety, for another, nervous excitement.

The degree of anxiety is influenced by (Moran, 2012):

• Perceived importance of the event
• Trait anxiety
• Attributing outcomes to internal or external factors
• Perfectionism – setting impossibly high standards
• Fear of failure
• Lack of confidence

While the competitor needs a degree of pressure (or arousal) and nervous energy to perform at their best, too much may cause them to crumble. Sports psychologists work with sportspeople to better understand the pressure and help manage it through several techniques including:

• Visualization
• Breathing and slowing down
• Sticking to pre-performance routines

Ultimately, it may not be the amount of arousal that affects performance, but its interpretation.

5. Confidence

While lack of confidence is an essential factor in competition anxiety, it also plays a crucial role in mental toughness.

As Gaelic footballer Michael Nolan says, “it’s not who we are that holds us back; it’s who we think we’re not”  (Clough & Strycharczyk, 2015).

Confidence is ultimately a measure of how much self-belief we have to see through to the end something beset with setbacks.

Those with a high degree of self-confidence will recognize that obstacles are part of life and take them in stride. Those less confident may believe the world is set against them and feel defeated or prevented from completing their task (Clough & Strycharczyk, 2015).

Self-confidence also taps into other, similar self-regulatory beliefs such as staying positive and maintaining self-belief (Sheard, 2013). An athlete high in self-confidence will harness their degree of self-belief and meet the challenge head on.

However, there are risks associated with being too self-confident. Overconfidence in abilities can lead to taking on too much, intolerance, and the inability to see underdeveloped skills.

And yet, that can only ever be part of the success story.

Sports place tremendous pressure on the competitor’s mind in competition and in training, and that pressure must be supported by robust and reliable psychological constructs (Kumar & Shirotriya, 2010).

The abilities to maintain focus under such pressure and also control actions during extreme circumstances of uncertainty can be strengthened by the mental training and skills a sports psychologist provides.

Mental preparation helps ready the individual and team for competition and offers an edge over an adversary while optimizing performance.

Not only that, but the skills learned in sports psychology are transferable; we can take them to other domains such as education and the workplace.

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz (2018) recognized the parallels between achieving “sustained high performance in the face of ever-increasing pressure and rapid change” in the workplace and on the sports field.

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Perhaps the earliest known formal study of the mental processes involved in sports can be attributed to Triplett in 1898.

Triplett explored the positive effect of having other competitors to race against in the new sport of cycling. He found that the presence of others enhances the performance of well-learned skills.

In the decades that followed, the focus turned to a range of sports, including archery and baseball, with the first dedicated psychology research center called the Athletic Research Laboratory  set up at the University of Illinois in 1925.

It wasn’t until the 1960s that sports psychology formally emerged as a distinct discipline from psychology, specifically with the International Society of Sport Psychology in 1965. However, it wasn’t until 1986 that sports psychology had its own division in the American Psychology Association (Moran, 2012).

The following recommendations all engage with professional psychologists, coaches, and competitors to provide psychological theory and practical guidance:

• Mental Preparation Secrets of Top Athletes, Entertainers, and Surgeons In this episode of Harvard Business Review’s IdeaCast, Dan McGinn talks about how top performers in sports and the world of business “prepare for their big moments.”
• Science of Ultra A podcast that explores the psychology and physiology of endurance through fascinating conversations with scientists, psychologists, trainers, coaches, and athletes.
• The Sport Psych Show‬‬‬ Sports psychologist Dan Adams takes listeners on a journey to demystify the psychological tools and techniques available to drive sporting participation and performance.
• Sports Psychology Podcast by Peaksports.com‬‬‬ Patrick Cohn helps athletes, coaches, and sports parents understand how to adopt the right mindset to improve confidence and boost performance.

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We have many tools and worksheets that can help you or your clients identify and work toward goals, develop resilience, and grow self-confidence:

• Setting SMART+ Goals Capture SMART goals and their accountability to ensure they receive the appropriate focus to ensure completion.
• Confidence Booster Add confidence boosters to your daily and weekly schedule.
• Understanding Self-Confidence Gain insight into your self-confidence and use that understanding to begin to improve your self-esteem.
• 17 Motivation & Goal-Achievement Exercises If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others reach their goals, this collection contains 17 validated motivation & goals-achievement tools for practitioners. Use them to help others turn their dreams into reality by applying the latest science-based behavioral change techniques.
• Sports Psychology Books Another great way to get a better understanding of Sports Psychology, is to read recommended books. Our article listing the top 20 Sports Psychology Books is the perfect place to start.
• Sports Psychology Techniques & Tips Explore these Sports Psychology techniques and tips that can help athletes up their game, overcome obstacles, and deliver peak performances.
• Sports Psychology Courses Last but not least, to find out where you can study Sports Psychology, this article shares 17 of the best Sports Psychology Degrees, Courses, & Programs .

Becoming an elite performer results from years of careful planning and hard work. The winners get to the top by identifying, defining, and achieving a series of smaller goals along the way to reaching the podium.

But being at that level takes sustainable motivation and the ability to remain calm under considerable pressure. Successful performance requires the right mindset and psychological tools to allow the sportsperson to overcome both defeat and success. Neither of which is easy.

Modern athletes (professional and amateur), coaches, and team managers recognize the challenges within their sport and the competitive edge gained from seeking sports psychologists’ help.

Time-crunched athletes require focused, pragmatic support and solutions that allow them to deliver a consistent high-quality performance.

Even in the world outside the sporting arena, we are all competing. Understanding the psychological mechanisms involved in overcoming obstacles, hitting our goals, and achieving success is invaluable.

As academic philosopher David Papineau writes, many have come to realize that “sporting prowess has much to teach us about the workings of our minds” (Cappuccio, 2018).

Review the examples, theories, and approaches introduced in this article, and consider how they can benefit performance at any level of competition and be applied to manage stress, overcome obstacles, and improve performance.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free .

• Afremow, J. A. (2014). The champion’s mind: How great athletes think, train, and thrive . Rodale.
• Bastable, A. (2020). Secret to Tiger Woods’ success was revealed in these 2 remarkable hours. Golf. Retrieved March 5, 2021, from https://golf.com/news/secret-tiger-woods-success-revealed-2-hours/
• Cappuccio, M. (2018). Handbook of embodied cognition and sport psychology . MIT Press.
• Clough, P., & Strycharczyk, D. (2015). Developing mental toughness: Coaching strategies to improve performance, resilience and wellbeing . Kogan Page.
• Crust, L., & Clough, P. J. (2005). Relationship between mental toughness and physical endurance. Perceptual and Motor Skills , 100 , 192–194.
• Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). The general causality orientations scale: Self-determination in personality. Journal of Research in Personality , 19 , 109–134.
• Gucciardi, D. F., Peeling, P., Ducker, K. J., & Dawson, B. (2016). When the going gets tough: Mental toughness and its relationship with behavioural perseverance. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport , 19 (1), 81–86.
• Jones, G., Hanton, S., & Connaughton, D (2002). What is this thing called mental toughness? An investigation with elite performers. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology , 14 , 211–224.
• Kremer, J., Moran, A. P., & Kearney, C. J. (2019). Pure sport: Practical sport psychology . Routledge.
• Kumar, P., & Shirotriya, A. K. (2010). ‘Sports psychology’ a crucial ingredient for athletes success: Conceptual view. British Journal of Sports Medicine , 44 (Suppl_1), i55–i56.
• Loehr, J., & Schwartz, T. (2018). The making of a corporate athlete. In HBR’s 10 must reads: On mental toughness . Harvard Business Review Press.
• Meijen, C. (2019). Endurance performance in sport: Psychological theory and interventions . Routledge.
• Moran, A. P. (2012). Sport and exercise psychology: A critical introduction . Psychology Press.
• Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness . Guilford Press.
• Sheard, M. (2013). Mental toughness: The mindset behind sporting achievement . Routledge.
• Sutton, J. (2019). Psychological and physiological factors that affect success in ultra-marathoners (Doctoral thesis, Ulster University). Retrieved from https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/psychological-and-physiological-factors-that-affect-success-in-ul
• Triplett, N. (1898). The dynamogenic factors in pacemaking and competition. The American Journal of Psychology , 9 (4), 507–533.
• Whyte, G. P. (2015). Achieve the impossible: How to overcome challenges and gain success in life, work and sport . Bantam Press.

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Hello, my name is Ali, and I have a question about something. I graduated last year from the Faculty of Physical Education in my country, Egypt, Helwan University, and I got a bachelor’s degree with excellent grades. I was majoring in sports psychology. I am really interested and very passionate about this field. The articles I read helped me in fact. On this site about this specialization, it increases my desire to stick to work in this field, but I am currently facing a problem, which is I do not know where to start specifically, should I complete postgraduate academic studies in this specialty until I get at least a master’s degree in order to work in clubs As a sports psychologist? Or do I apply directly to one of the clubs and ask to work as a sports psychologist in it? And with which team, in particular, or in what sport? What are the required conditions and qualifications that allow me to work in this field? What are the types of books that I should read in order to improve my cognitive, scientific and applied skills in this field? Thank you very much

Yes, if you want to become a registered psychologist in any discipline, you will need to complete a Master’s degree. You’ll need to do this before you can work as a psychologist in the field. You can learn more about the process in this article , and also in our digital guidebook on becoming a therapist (which also covers what’s involved in becoming a psychologist).

We also have a dedicated blog post full of sport psychology book recommendations here . I imagine once you’ve gone through a sports psychology Master’s program and done further reading, you may discover which specific sports and teams you are most likely to enjoy working with — ultimately that decision is up to you!

Hope these materials help.

– Nicole | Community Manager

Do you think this translates to a 1:1 with digital athletes (like in esports)? Or do you think the physical athlete’s connection with physical exercise during competition may change the way this type of anxiety is dealtwith?

That’s a great question! I can’t give you a clear answer as research in this space is still very much new and emerging. However, at face value, I think many of the components here do equally apply to esports. For instance, it is just as important to set effective goals and manage anxiety/arousal in esports as it is in traditional sports.

As you note, however, mechanisms for effective goal-setting, management of anxiety, etc. may be different from traditional sports, as they may not rely on the mind-body connection in the same way, or draw more on cognitive resources and capabilities.

For a review that sets the stage for research in this space, definitely check out Pedraza-Ramirez et al. (2020) .

Hope this helps a little!

Hi am a Nigerian students of physical and health education my question is what are d criteria to work as a physiotherapist after study physical and health education

Hi Abigial,

The laws re: practicing as a physiotherapist will vary depending on country and state, so could you please let me know where you were hoping to practice? Then I can point you in the direction of some advice.

How can we use sports psychology to motivate people to get moving again outside, especially because of Covid-19? Can the answer/s also encourage society to create new gender neutral sports that keeps players separate without hands or head touching shared equipment? Can the lack of exercise be a big contributing factor why some students are not doing so well with Covid-19 forced remote learning?

Sounds like this post inspired some big questions for you! And I’ve no doubt the nature of sports around the world is likely to change in the wake of the pandemic. Early thinking seems to suggest that the impact of COVID on people’s exercise habits (and flow-on effects to things like study and mental health) depends somewhat on people’s preferred sports. E.g., this article suggests that, due to the nature of restrictions, cyclists, runners, etc. are well catered for, but those used to doing other sports may not be. A search for ‘exercise covid’ in Google Scholar will reveal some other interesting and emerging research in this space if you’d like to read more.

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What Motivates Young Athletes to Play Sport?

Motivation is a key factor in young people choosing to play sport outside of school. For example, when playing sport, you could be concerned with getting better at skills, or you might be more focused on being better than other athletes. Moreover, you could choose to take part in sport because you enjoy it, or you could participate because your parents say so. In this article, we explain these two ways of looking at motivation—one that is all about the goals you strive for, and the other that is all about your reasons for taking part. Sport scientists have used these approaches frequently to understand motivation in youth sport and to promote more rewarding experiences. To stay in youth sport longer, it is better if you want to improve yourself rather than to out-do others, and better if you want to be involved rather than feeling forced to participate.

Motivation is a wonderful thing. It gives you energy and makes you want to do specific activities, like playing organized sport. Millions of young people all over the world engage in competitive sport from an early age, and many continue throughout their teenage years. For some people, sport is a wonderful experience that helps them develop as athletes and as people. For others, their time in sport is short-lived, as they discover it is not what they want or because they feel they are not good enough. So, what influences whether sport is rewarding? In this article, you will read about key features of motivation that help to answer this question. The first section deals with your achievement goals , and the second looks at your motivational regulations , or reasons for taking part.

Goals In Sport—What Are You Trying To Achieve?

Why do some young people participate in sport and excel, while others give up? One answer comes from achievement goal theory [ 1 ]. This theory gets its name because there are two different, but sometimes complementary, ways of striving to be good at sport, which are called achievement goals. A goal is something you try to do or aim for, and relates to how you view your own ability. For example, in sport, you might have the goal of wanting to improve your skills—maybe you want to beat your personal record or develop your technique. This is called having a mastery goal ; you are trying to learn and develop yourself in sport to feel successful. On the other hand, you might have the goal of wanting to be better than everyone else—you want to win or do things faster or more easily than your teammates or competitors. This is called having a performance goal ; you are trying to show that you are better than others and that is what makes you feel successful in your sport.

Why are these two goals important for understanding whether young athletes stay in sport or quit? Well, these two ways of viewing your ability have very different consequences. When you have a mastery goal, you are focusing on improving your own skills, learning new things, and developing in your sport. You are more likely to enjoy your sport and want to participate. You will feel happy, proud of your efforts, and satisfied with your performance. These feelings make you to want to keep going. However, when you have a performance goal, you may be worried about the competition because you do not know if you will be the best or win at your sport. As the group of people that you compare yourself with often changes (because better players join your team, you move up in age group, or other players simply improve faster than you), you can never be sure that you will be among the best. Consequently, you will be less likely to satisfy your goals and more likely to drop out.

Interestingly, young athletes show preferences for either mastery or performance goals, but some will adopt both at various times and in different situations. These athletes often stay longer in sport because they have more than one way of viewing their abilities and experiencing success. Nevertheless, most young athletes who remain in sport effectively employ mastery goals that are based on self-improvement. They are more interested in the processes of sport performance (techniques and tactics) and less in the outcomes of competition. That is, they constantly want to improve at and master the various elements and demands of their sport, and they will practice and train enthusiastically. The aspect of enjoyment leads to our second way of understanding motivation in youth sport.

Motivational Regulations In Sport—Why Are You Taking Part?

An alternative way to understand motivation in youth sport is to examine your reasons for taking part. The theory we are going to look at this time is called self-determination theory [ 2 ]. This theory involves the idea of motivational regulations, or more simply, your reasons for involvement in sport. These are the answers you give when asked, “why do you play your sport?” Do you participate freely, because you choose to, or because something or someone else has forced you to be involved? Let us look at these reasons in a bit more detail. They are really important because they reflect the quality of your motivation in sport.

What does it mean to have a high quality of motivation in sport? Many of you will say that you love sport, it is great fun, and you really enjoy everything about it. This shows intrinsic motivation and is the most positive form of motivation because you want to play sport for its own sake, and you freely choose to play. At the other extreme, it is possible that you do not want to be there, and you cannot see the point of it at all. Although this absence of motivation is more likely to be seen in school physical education settings, it can be present in youth sport if, for example, you are forced to join a sport team by your parents. You might feel you have little ability, or feel you have no friends in sport. These are clearly not good reasons for sticking with sport!

In between these two extremes are several other types of motivation, all of which can be described as extrinsic motivation . Types of extrinsic motivation differ in the degree of freedom that you feel playing sport. More freedom equals higher-quality motivation because you want, rather than feel forced, to participate. For example, you might want to play sport because it improves your fitness or allows you to make friends. These are more positive reasons for taking part. Less positively, you might play to please your friends and parents and avoid their disappointment if you drop out. Even worse, you could play sport to avoid punishment from your parents or just to win trophies and other rewards. So, some forms of extrinsic motivation are more desirable than others. The important point is that the more intrinsic your motivation is, or the more it reflects positive extrinsic reasons, the more rewarding sport will be. Without these reasons for playing, you will probably feel like you do not want to be there, and you will possibly show no motivation whatsoever ( Figure 1 )!

• Figure 1 - Reasons for playing sport can be more autonomous or more controlling.
• More feelings of autonomy and fewer feelings of being controlled lead to higher quality motivation. Not all extrinsic reasons are equally bad. Playing to keep fit, for example, is better than playing to win trophies.

You will have many reasons for playing sport, and the balance between feeling like you want, should, or must participate will determine the quality of your sport experience. In reality, your involvement in sport is probably a result of both autonomous (freely chosen) and controlled (forced) reasons. To find sport more rewarding, you want the autonomous reasons to outweigh the controlled reasons. Whether that happens depends a great deal on the adults who support you. Coaches and parents can help you to develop better quality motivation in sport.

To sum up, we have shown you two ways of understanding your motivation in sport. These are not the only ways. The take-home message is that sport will be more positive if you try to use mastery goals to develop your skills, and if you experience a feeling of personal choice about being there. With motivation like this, it is more likely that you will only want to stop being involved in youth sport when you become too old to play!

Achievement Goals : ↑ What you aim to do (desire) to feel successful.

Motivational Regulations : ↑ Reasons for doing something that show higher or lower quality motivation.

Mastery Goal : ↑ A desire to get better without comparing yourself to anyone else.

Performance Goal : ↑ A desire to be better than others.

Intrinsic Motivation : ↑ The highest quality of motivation, involving enjoyment and fun.

Extrinsic Motivation : ↑ Lower quality motivation than intrinsic motivation, not based on the activity itself.

Autonomous Reasons : ↑ A feeling that you do something by choice.

Controlled Reasons : ↑ A feeling that you are forced to do something.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

[1] ↑ Nicholls, J. G. 1984. Achievement motivation: conceptions of ability, subjective experience, task choice, and performance. Psychol. Rev. 91:328–46. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.91.3.328

[2] ↑ Ryan, R. M., and Deci, E. L. 2017. Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness . (New York, NY: The Guilford Press). p. 481–507.

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Sport psychology and performance meta-analyses: A systematic review of the literature

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Department of Kinesiology and Sport Management, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, United States of America, Education Academy, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania

Roles Data curation, Methodology, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Department of Psychological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, United States of America

Roles Data curation, Methodology

Roles Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Kinesiology and Sport Management, Honors College, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, United States of America

Roles Data curation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Faculty of Education, Health and Well-Being, University of Wolverhampton, Walsall, West Midlands, United Kingdom

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Division of Research & Innovation, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia

• Marc Lochbaum, 
• Elisabeth Stoner, 
• Tristen Hefner, 
• Sydney Cooper, 
• Andrew M. Lane, 
• Peter C. Terry

• Published: February 16, 2022
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263408
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

Sport psychology as an academic pursuit is nearly two centuries old. An enduring goal since inception has been to understand how psychological techniques can improve athletic performance. Although much evidence exists in the form of meta-analytic reviews related to sport psychology and performance, a systematic review of these meta-analyses is absent from the literature. We aimed to synthesize the extant literature to gain insights into the overall impact of sport psychology on athletic performance. Guided by the PRISMA statement for systematic reviews, we reviewed relevant articles identified via the EBSCOhost interface. Thirty meta-analyses published between 1983 and 2021 met the inclusion criteria, covering 16 distinct sport psychology constructs. Overall, sport psychology interventions/variables hypothesized to enhance performance (e.g., cohesion, confidence, mindfulness) were shown to have a moderate beneficial effect ( d = 0.51), whereas variables hypothesized to be detrimental to performance (e.g., cognitive anxiety, depression, ego climate) had a small negative effect ( d = -0.21). The quality rating of meta-analyses did not significantly moderate the magnitude of observed effects, nor did the research design (i.e., intervention vs. correlation) of the primary studies included in the meta-analyses. Our review strengthens the evidence base for sport psychology techniques and may be of great practical value to practitioners. We provide recommendations for future research in the area.

Citation: Lochbaum M, Stoner E, Hefner T, Cooper S, Lane AM, Terry PC (2022) Sport psychology and performance meta-analyses: A systematic review of the literature. PLoS ONE 17(2): e0263408. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263408

Editor: Claudio Imperatori, European University of Rome, ITALY

Received: September 28, 2021; Accepted: January 18, 2022; Published: February 16, 2022

Copyright: © 2022 Lochbaum et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper.

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Sport performance matters. Verifying its global importance requires no more than opening a newspaper to the sports section, browsing the internet, looking at social media outlets, or scanning abundant sources of sport information. Sport psychology is an important avenue through which to better understand and improve sport performance. To date, a systematic review of published sport psychology and performance meta-analyses is absent from the literature. Given the undeniable importance of sport, the history of sport psychology in academics since 1830, and the global rise of sport psychology journals and organizations, a comprehensive systematic review of the meta-analytic literature seems overdue. Thus, we aimed to consolidate the existing literature and provide recommendations for future research.

The development of sport psychology

The history of sport psychology dates back nearly 200 years. Terry [ 1 ] cites Carl Friedrich Koch’s (1830) publication titled [in translation] Calisthenics from the Viewpoint of Dietetics and Psychology [ 2 ] as perhaps the earliest publication in the field, and multiple commentators have noted that sport psychology experiments occurred in the world’s first psychology laboratory, established by Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig in 1879 [ 1 , 3 ]. Konrad Rieger’s research on hypnosis and muscular endurance, published in 1884 [ 4 ] and Angelo Mosso’s investigations of the effects of mental fatigue on physical performance, published in 1891 [ 5 ] were other early landmarks in the development of applied sport psychology research. Following the efforts of Koch, Wundt, Rieger, and Mosso, sport psychology works appeared with increasing regularity, including Philippe Tissié’s publications in 1894 [ 6 , 7 ] on psychology and physical training, and Pierre de Coubertin’s first use of the term sport psychology in his La Psychologie du Sport paper in 1900 [ 8 ]. In short, the history of sport psychology and performance research began as early as 1830 and picked up pace in the latter part of the 19 th century. Early pioneers, who helped shape sport psychology include Wundt, recognized as the “father of experimental psychology”, Tissié, the founder of French physical education and Legion of Honor awardee in 1932, and de Coubertin who became the father of the modern Olympic movement and founder of the International Olympic Committee.

Sport psychology flourished in the early 20 th century [see 1, 3 for extensive historic details]. For instance, independent laboratories emerged in Berlin, Germany, established by Carl Diem in 1920; in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia, established respectively by Avksenty Puni and Piotr Roudik in 1925; and in Champaign, Illinois USA, established by Coleman Griffith, also in 1925. The period from 1950–1980 saw rapid strides in sport psychology, with Franklin Henry establishing this field of study as independent of physical education in the landscape of American and eventually global sport science and kinesiology graduate programs [ 1 ]. In addition, of great importance in the 1960s, three international sport psychology organizations were established: namely, the International Society for Sport Psychology (1965), the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity (1966), and the European Federation of Sport Psychology (1969). Since that time, the Association of Applied Sport Psychology (1986), the South American Society for Sport Psychology (1986), and the Asian-South Pacific Association of Sport Psychology (1989) have also been established.

The global growth in academic sport psychology has seen a large number of specialist publications launched, including the following journals: International Journal of Sport Psychology (1970), Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology (1979), The Sport Psychologist (1987), Journal of Applied Sport Psychology (1989), Psychology of Sport and Exercise (2000), International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology (2003), Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology (2007), International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology (2008), Journal of Sport Psychology in Action (2010), Sport , Exercise , and Performance Psychology (2014), and the Asian Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology (2021).

In turn, the growth in journal outlets has seen sport psychology publications burgeon. Indicative of the scale of the contemporary literature on sport psychology, searches completed in May 2021 within the Web of Science Core Collection, identified 1,415 publications on goal setting and sport since 1985; 5,303 publications on confidence and sport since 1961; and 3,421 publications on anxiety and sport since 1980. In addition to academic journals, several comprehensive edited textbooks have been produced detailing sport psychology developments across the world, such as Hanrahan and Andersen’s (2010) Handbook of Applied Sport Psychology [ 9 ], Schinke, McGannon, and Smith’s (2016) International Handbook of Sport Psychology [ 10 ], and Bertollo, Filho, and Terry’s (2021) Advancements in Mental Skills Training [ 11 ] to name just a few. In short, sport psychology is global in both academic study and professional practice.

Meta-analysis in sport psychology

Several meta-analysis guides, computer programs, and sport psychology domain-specific primers have been popularized in the social sciences [ 12 , 13 ]. Sport psychology academics have conducted quantitative reviews on much studied constructs since the 1980s, with the first two appearing in 1983 in the form of Feltz and Landers’ meta-analysis on mental practice [ 14 ], which included 98 articles dating from 1934, and Bond and Titus’ cross-disciplinary meta-analysis on social facilitation [ 15 ], which summarized 241 studies including Triplett’s (1898) often-cited study of social facilitation in cycling [ 16 ]. Although much meta-analytic evidence exists for various constructs in sport and exercise psychology [ 12 ] including several related to performance [ 17 ], the evidence is inconsistent. For example, two meta-analyses, both ostensibly summarizing evidence of the benefits to performance of task cohesion [ 18 , 19 ], produced very different mean effects ( d = .24 vs d = 1.00) indicating that the true benefit lies somewhere in a wide range from small to large. Thus, the lack of a reliable evidence base for the use of sport psychology techniques represents a significant gap in the knowledge base for practitioners and researchers alike. A comprehensive systematic review of all published meta-analyses in the field of sport psychology has yet to be published.

Purpose and aim

We consider this review to be both necessary and long overdue for the following reasons: (a) the extensive history of sport psychology and performance research; (b) the prior publication of many meta-analyses summarizing various aspects of sport psychology research in a piecemeal fashion [ 12 , 17 ] but not its totality; and (c) the importance of better understanding and hopefully improving sport performance via the use of interventions based on solid evidence of their efficacy. Hence, we aimed to collate and evaluate this literature in a systematic way to gain improved understanding of the impact of sport psychology variables on sport performance by construct, research design, and meta-analysis quality, to enhance practical knowledge of sport psychology techniques and identify future lines of research inquiry. By systematically reviewing all identifiable meta-analytic reviews linking sport psychology techniques with sport performance, we aimed to evaluate the strength of the evidence base underpinning sport psychology interventions.

Materials and methods

This systematic review of meta-analyses followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines [ 20 ]. We did not register our systematic review protocol in a database. However, we specified our search strategy, inclusion criteria, data extraction, and data analyses in advance of writing our manuscript. All details of our work are available from the lead author. Concerning ethics, this systematic review received a waiver from Texas Tech University Human Subject Review Board as it concerned archival data (i.e., published meta-analyses).

Eligibility criteria

Published meta-analyses were retained for extensive examination if they met the following inclusion criteria: (a) included meta-analytic data such as mean group, between or within-group differences or correlates; (b) published prior to January 31, 2021; (c) published in a peer-reviewed journal; (d) investigated a recognized sport psychology construct; and (e) meta-analyzed data concerned with sport performance. There was no language of publication restriction. To align with our systematic review objectives, we gave much consideration to study participants and performance outcomes. Across multiple checks, all authors confirmed study eligibility. Three authors (ML, AL, and PT) completed the final inclusion assessments.

Information sources

Authors searched electronic databases, personal meta-analysis history, and checked with personal research contacts. Electronic database searches occurred in EBSCOhost with the following individual databases selected: APA PsycINFO, ERIC, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, and SPORTDiscus. An initial search concluded October 1, 2020. ML, AL, and PT rechecked the identified studies during the February–March, 2021 period, which resulted in the identification of two additional meta-analyses [ 21 , 22 ].

Search protocol

ML and ES initially conducted independent database searches. For the first search, ML used the following search terms: sport psychology with meta-analysis or quantitative review and sport and performance or sport* performance. For the second search, ES utilized a sport psychology textbook and used the chapter title terms (e.g., goal setting). In EBSCOhost, both searches used the advanced search option that provided three separate boxes for search terms such as box 1 (sport psychology), box 2 (meta-analysis), and box 3 (performance). Specific details of our search strategy were:

Search by ML:

• sport psychology, meta-analysis, sport and performance
• sport psychology, meta-analysis or quantitative review, sport* performance
• sport psychology, quantitative review, sport and performance
• sport psychology, quantitative review, sport* performance

Search by ES:

• mental practice or mental imagery or mental rehearsal and sports performance and meta-analysis
• goal setting and sports performance and meta-analysis
• anxiety and stress and sports performance and meta-analysis
• competition and sports performance and meta-analysis
• diversity and sports performance and meta-analysis
• cohesion and sports performance and meta-analysis
• imagery and sports performance and meta-analysis
• self-confidence and sports performance and meta-analysis
• concentration and sports performance and meta-analysis
• athletic injuries and sports performance and meta-analysis
• overtraining and sports performance and meta-analysis
• children and sports performance and meta-analysis

The following specific search of the EBSCOhost with SPORTDiscus, APA PsycINFO, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, and ERIC databases, returned six results from 2002–2020, of which three were included [ 18 , 19 , 23 ] and three were excluded because they were not meta-analyses.

• Box 1 cohesion
• Box 2 sports performance
• Box 3 meta-analysis

Study selection

As detailed in the PRISMA flow chart ( Fig 1 ) and the specified inclusion criteria, a thorough study selection process was used. As mentioned in the search protocol, two authors (ML and ES) engaged independently with two separate searches and then worked together to verify the selected studies. Next, AL and PT examined the selected study list for accuracy. ML, AL, and PT, whilst rating the quality of included meta-analyses, also re-examined all selected studies to verify that each met the predetermined study inclusion criteria. Throughout the study selection process, disagreements were resolved through discussion until consensus was reached.

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263408.g001

Data extraction process

Initially, ML, TH, and ES extracted data items 1, 2, 3 and 8 (see Data items). Subsequently, ML, AL, and PT extracted the remaining data (items 4–7, 9, 10). Checks occurred during the extraction process for potential discrepancies (e.g., checking the number of primary studies in a meta-analysis). It was unnecessary to contact any meta-analysis authors for missing information or clarification during the data extraction process because all studies reported the required information. Across the search for meta-analyses, all identified studies were reported in English. Thus, no translation software or searching out a native speaker occurred. All data extraction forms (e.g., data items and individual meta-analysis quality) are available from the first author.

To help address our main aim, we extracted the following information from each meta-analysis: (1) author(s); (2) publication year; (3) construct(s); (4) intervention based meta-analysis (yes, no, mix); (5) performance outcome(s) description; (6) number of studies for the performance outcomes; (7) participant description; (8) main findings; (9) bias correction method/results; and (10) author(s) stated conclusions. For all information sought, we coded missing information as not reported.

Individual meta-analysis quality

ML, AL, and PT independently rated the quality of individual meta-analysis on the following 25 points found in the PRISMA checklist [ 20 ]: title; abstract structured summary; introduction rationale, objectives, and protocol and registration; methods eligibility criteria, information sources, search, study selection, data collection process, data items, risk of bias of individual studies, summary measures, synthesis of results, and risk of bias across studies; results study selection, study characteristics, risk of bias within studies, results of individual studies, synthesis of results, and risk of bias across studies; discussion summary of evidence, limitations, and conclusions; and funding. All meta-analyses were rated for quality by two coders to facilitate inter-coder reliability checks, and the mean quality ratings were used in subsequent analyses. One author (PT), having completed his own ratings, received the incoming ratings from ML and AL and ran the inter-coder analysis. Two rounds of ratings occurred due to discrepancies for seven meta-analyses, mainly between ML and AL. As no objective quality categorizations (i.e., a point system for grouping meta-analyses as poor, medium, good) currently exist, each meta-analysis was allocated a quality score of up to a maximum of 25 points. All coding records are available upon request.

Planned methods of analysis

Several preplanned methods of analysis occurred. We first assessed the mean quality rating of each meta-analysis based on our 25-point PRISMA-based rating system. Next, we used a median split of quality ratings to determine whether standardized mean effects (SMDs) differed by the two formed categories, higher and lower quality meta-analyses. Meta-analysis authors reported either of two different effect size metrics (i.e., r and SMD); hence we converted all correlational effects to SMD (i.e., Cohen’s d ) values using an online effect size calculator ( www.polyu.edu.hk/mm/effectsizefaqs/calculator/calculator.html ). We interpreted the meaningfulness of effects based on Cohen’s interpretation [ 24 ] with 0.20 as small, 0.50 as medium, 0.80 as large, and 1.30 as very large. As some psychological variables associate negatively with performance (e.g., confusion [ 25 ], cognitive anxiety [ 26 ]) whereas others associate positively (e.g., cohesion [ 23 ], mental practice [ 14 ]), we grouped meta-analyses according to whether the hypothesized effect with performance was positive or negative, and summarized the overall effects separately. By doing so, we avoided a scenario whereby the demonstrated positive and negative effects canceled one another out when combined. The effect of somatic anxiety on performance, which is hypothesized to follow an inverted-U relationship, was categorized as neutral [ 35 ]. Last, we grouped the included meta-analyses according to whether the primary studies were correlational in nature or involved an intervention and summarized these two groups of meta-analyses separately.

Study characteristics

Table 1 contains extracted data from 30 meta-analyses meeting the inclusion criteria, dating from 1983 [ 14 ] to 2021 [ 21 ]. The number of primary studies within the meta-analyses ranged from three [ 27 ] to 109 [ 28 ]. In terms of the description of participants included in the meta-analyses, 13 included participants described simply as athletes, whereas other meta-analyses identified a mix of elite athletes (e.g., professional, Olympic), recreational athletes, college-aged volunteers (many from sport science departments), younger children to adolescents, and adult exercisers. Of the 30 included meta-analyses, the majority ( n = 18) were published since 2010. The decadal breakdown of meta-analyses was 1980–1989 ( n = 1 [ 14 ]), 1990–1999 ( n = 6 [ 29 – 34 ]), 2000–2009 ( n = 5 [ 23 , 25 , 26 , 35 , 36 ]), 2010–2019 ( n = 12 [ 18 , 19 , 22 , 27 , 37 – 43 , 48 ]), and 2020–2021 ( n = 6 [ 21 , 28 , 44 – 47 ]).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263408.t001

As for the constructs covered, we categorized the 30 meta-analyses into the following areas: mental practice/imagery [ 14 , 29 , 30 , 42 , 46 , 47 ], anxiety [ 26 , 31 , 32 , 35 ], confidence [ 26 , 35 , 36 ], cohesion [ 18 , 19 , 23 ], goal orientation [ 22 , 44 , 48 ], mood [ 21 , 25 , 34 ], emotional intelligence [ 40 ], goal setting [ 33 ], interventions [ 37 ], mindfulness [ 27 ], music [ 28 ], neurofeedback training [ 43 ], perfectionism [ 39 ], pressure training [ 45 ], quiet eye training [ 41 ], and self-talk [ 38 ]. Multiple effects were generated from meta-analyses that included more than one construct (e.g., tension, depression, etc. [ 21 ]; anxiety and confidence [ 26 ]). In relation to whether the meta-analyses included in our review assessed the effects of a sport psychology intervention on performance or relationships between psychological constructs and performance, 13 were intervention-based, 14 were correlational, two included a mix of study types, and one included a large majority of cross-sectional studies ( Table 1 ).

A wide variety of performance outcomes across many sports was evident, such as golf putting, dart throwing, maximal strength, and juggling; or categorical outcomes such as win/loss and Olympic team selection. Given the extensive list of performance outcomes and the incomplete descriptions provided in some meta-analyses, a clear categorization or count of performance types was not possible. Sufficient to conclude, researchers utilized many performance outcomes across a wide range of team and individual sports, motor skills, and strength and aerobic tasks.

Effect size data and bias correction

To best summarize the effects, we transformed all correlations to SMD values (i.e., Cohen’s d ). Across all included meta-analyses shown in Table 2 and depicted in Fig 2 , we identified 61 effects. Having corrected for bias, effect size values were assessed for meaningfulness [ 24 ], which resulted in 15 categorized as negligible (< ±0.20), 29 as small (±0.20 to < 0.50), 13 as moderate (±0.50 to < 0.80), 2 as large (±0.80 to < 1.30), and 1 as very large (≥ 1.30).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263408.g002

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263408.t002

Study quality rating results and summary analyses

Following our PRISMA quality ratings, intercoder reliability coefficients were initially .83 (ML, AL), .95 (ML, PT), and .90 (AL, PT), with a mean intercoder reliability coefficient of .89. To achieve improved reliability (i.e., r mean > .90), ML and AL re-examined their ratings. As a result, intercoder reliability increased to .98 (ML, AL), .96 (ML, PT), and .92 (AL, PT); a mean intercoder reliability coefficient of .95. Final quality ratings (i.e., the mean of two coders) ranged from 13 to 25 ( M = 19.03 ± 4.15). Our median split into higher ( M = 22.83 ± 1.08, range 21.5–25, n = 15) and lower ( M = 15.47 ± 2.42, range 13–20.5, n = 15) quality groups produced significant between-group differences in quality ( F 1,28 = 115.62, p < .001); hence, the median split met our intended purpose. The higher quality group of meta-analyses were published from 2015–2021 (median 2018) and the lower quality group from 1983–2014 (median 2000). It appears that meta-analysis standards have risen over the years since the PRISMA criteria were first introduced in 2009. All data for our analyses are shown in Table 2 .

Table 3 contains summary statistics with bias-corrected values used in the analyses. The overall mean effect for sport psychology constructs hypothesized to have a positive impact on performance was of moderate magnitude ( d = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.42, 0.58, n = 36). The overall mean effect for sport psychology constructs hypothesized to have a negative impact on performance was small in magnitude ( d = -0.21, 95% CI -0.31, -0.11, n = 24). In both instances, effects were larger, although not significantly so, among meta-analyses of higher quality compared to those of lower quality. Similarly, mean effects were larger but not significantly so, where reported effects in the original studies were based on interventional rather than correlational designs. This trend only applied to hypothesized positive effects because none of the original studies in the meta-analyses related to hypothesized negative effects used interventional designs.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263408.t003

In this systematic review of meta-analyses, we synthesized the available evidence regarding effects of sport psychology interventions/constructs on sport performance. We aimed to consolidate the literature, evaluate the potential for meta-analysis quality to influence the results, and suggest recommendations for future research at both the single study and quantitative review stages. During the systematic review process, several meta-analysis characteristics came to light, such as the number of meta-analyses of sport psychology interventions (experimental designs) compared to those summarizing the effects of psychological constructs (correlation designs) on performance, the number of meta-analyses with exclusively athletes as participants, and constructs featuring in multiple meta-analyses, some of which (e.g., cohesion) produced very different effect size values. Thus, although our overall aim was to evaluate the strength of the evidence base for use of psychological interventions in sport, we also discuss the impact of these meta-analysis characteristics on the reliability of the evidence.

When seen collectively, results of our review are supportive of using sport psychology techniques to help improve performance and confirm that variations in psychological constructs relate to variations in performance. For constructs hypothesized to have a positive effect on performance, the mean effect strength was moderate ( d = 0.51) although there was substantial variation between constructs. For example, the beneficial effects on performance of task cohesion ( d = 1.00) and self-efficacy ( d = 0.82) are large, and the available evidence base for use of mindfulness interventions suggests a very large beneficial effect on performance ( d = 1.35). Conversely, some hypothetically beneficial effects (2 of 36; 5.6%) were in the negligible-to-small range (0.15–0.20) and most beneficial effects (19 of 36; 52.8%) were in the small-to-moderate range (0.22–0.49). It should be noted that in the world of sport, especially at the elite level, even a small beneficial effect on performance derived from a psychological intervention may prove the difference between success and failure and hence small effects may be of great practical value. To put the scale of the benefits into perspective, an authoritative and extensively cited review of healthy eating and physical activity interventions [ 49 ] produced an overall pooled effect size of 0.31 (compared to 0.51 for our study), suggesting sport psychology interventions designed to improve performance are generally more effective than interventions designed to promote healthy living.

Among hypothetically negative effects (e.g., ego climate, cognitive anxiety, depression), the mean detrimental effect was small ( d = -0.21) although again substantial variation among constructs was evident. Some hypothetically negative constructs (5 of 24; 20.8%) were found to actually provide benefits to performance, albeit in the negligible range (0.02–0.12) and only two constructs (8.3%), both from Lochbaum and colleagues’ POMS meta-analysis [ 21 ], were shown to negatively affect performance above a moderate level (depression: d = -0.64; total mood disturbance, which incorporates the depression subscale: d = -0.84). Readers should note that the POMS and its derivatives assess six specific mood dimensions rather than the mood construct more broadly, and therefore results should not be extrapolated to other dimensions of mood [ 50 ].

Mean effects were larger among higher quality than lower quality meta-analyses for both hypothetically positive ( d = 0.54 vs d = 0.45) and negative effects ( d = -0.25 vs d = 0.17), but in neither case were the differences significant. It is reasonable to assume that the true effects were derived from the higher quality meta-analyses, although our conclusions remain the same regardless of study quality. Overall, our findings provide a more rigorous evidence base for the use of sport psychology techniques by practitioners than was previously available, representing a significant contribution to knowledge. Moreover, our systematic scrutiny of 30 meta-analyses published between 1983 and 2021 has facilitated a series of recommendations to improve the quality of future investigations in the sport psychology area.

Recommendations

The development of sport psychology as an academic discipline and area of professional practice relies on using evidence and theory to guide practice. Hence, a strong evidence base for the applied work of sport psychologists is of paramount importance. Although the beneficial effects of some sport psychology techniques are small, it is important to note the larger performance benefits for other techniques, which may be extremely meaningful for applied practice. Overall, however, especially given the heterogeneity of the observed effects, it would be wise for applied practitioners to avoid overpromising the benefits of sport psychology services to clients and perhaps underdelivering as a result [ 1 ].

The results of our systematic review can be used to generate recommendations for how the profession might conduct improved research to better inform applied practice. Much of the early research in sport psychology was exploratory and potential moderating variables were not always sufficiently controlled. Terry [ 51 ] outlined this in relation to the study of mood-performance relationships, identifying that physical and skills factors will very likely exert a greater influence on performance than psychological factors. Further, type of sport (e.g., individual vs. team), duration of activity (e.g., short vs. long duration), level of competition (e.g., elite vs. recreational), and performance measure (e.g., norm-referenced vs. self-referenced) have all been implicated as potential moderators of the relationship between psychological variables and sport performance [ 51 ]. To detect the relatively subtle effects of psychological effects on performance, research designs need to be sufficiently sensitive to such potential confounds. Several specific methodological issues are worth discussing.

The first issue relates to measurement. Investigating the strength of a relationship requires the measured variables to be valid, accurate and reliable. Psychological variables in the meta-analyses we reviewed relied primarily on self-report outcome measures. The accuracy of self-report data requires detailed inner knowledge of thoughts, emotions, and behavior. Research shows that the accuracy of self-report information is subject to substantial individual differences [ 52 , 53 ]. Therefore, self-report data, at best, are an estimate of the measure. Measurement issues are especially relevant to the assessment of performance, and considerable measurement variation was evident between meta-analyses. Some performance measures were more sensitive, especially those assessing physical performance relative to what is normal for the individual performer (i.e., self-referenced performance). Hence, having multiple baseline indicators of performance increases the probability of identifying genuine performance enhancement derived from a psychological intervention [ 54 ].

A second issue relates to clarifying the rationale for how and why specific psychological variables might influence performance. A comprehensive review of prerequisites and precursors of athletic talent [ 55 ] concluded that the superiority of Olympic champions over other elite athletes is determined in part by a range of psychological variables, including high intrinsic motivation, determination, dedication, persistence, and creativity, thereby identifying performance-related variables that might benefit from a psychological intervention. Identifying variables that influence the effectiveness of interventions is a challenging but essential issue for researchers seeking to control and assess factors that might influence results [ 49 ]. A key part of this process is to use theory to propose the mechanism(s) by which an intervention might affect performance and to hypothesize how large the effect might be.

A third issue relates to the characteristics of the research participants involved. Out of convenience, it is not uncommon for researchers to use undergraduate student participants for research projects, which may bias results and restrict the generalization of findings to the population of primary interest, often elite athletes. The level of training and physical conditioning of participants will clearly influence their performance. Highly trained athletes will typically make smaller gains in performance over time than novice athletes, due to a ceiling effect (i.e., they have less room for improvement). For example, consider runner A, who takes 20 minutes to run 5km one week but 19 minutes the next week, and Runner B who takes 30 minutes one week and 25 minutes the next. If we compare the two, Runner A runs faster than Runner B on both occasions, but Runner B improved more, so whose performance was better? If we also consider Runner C, a highly trained athlete with a personal best of 14 minutes, to run 1 minute quicker the following week would almost require a world record time, which is clearly unlikely. For this runner, an improvement of a few seconds would represent an excellent performance. Evidence shows that trained, highly motivated athletes may reach performance plateaus and as such are good candidates for psychological skills training. They are less likely to make performance gains due to increased training volume and therefore the impact of psychological skills interventions may emerge more clearly. Therefore, both test-retest and cross-sectional research designs should account for individual difference variables. Further, the range of individual difference factors will be context specific; for example, individual differences in strength will be more important in a study that uses weightlifting as the performance measure than one that uses darts as the performance measure, where individual differences in skill would be more important.

A fourth factor that has not been investigated extensively relates to the variables involved in learning sport psychology techniques. Techniques such as imagery, self-talk and goal setting all require cognitive processing and as such some people will learn them faster than others [ 56 ]. Further, some people are intuitive self-taught users of, for example, mood regulation strategies such as abdominal breathing or listening to music who, if recruited to participate in a study investigating the effects of learning such techniques on performance, would respond differently to novice users. Hence, a major challenge when testing the effects of a psychological intervention is to establish suitable controls. A traditional non-treatment group offers one option, but such an approach does not consider the influence of belief effects (i.e., placebo/nocebo), which can either add or detract from the effectiveness of performance interventions [ 57 ]. If an individual believes that, an intervention will be effective, this provides a motivating effect for engagement and so performance may improve via increased effort rather than the effect of the intervention per se.

When there are positive beliefs that an intervention will work, it becomes important to distinguish belief effects from the proposed mechanism through which the intervention should be successful. Research has shown that field studies often report larger effects than laboratory studies, a finding attributed to higher motivation among participants in field studies [ 58 ]. If participants are motivated to improve, being part of an active training condition should be associated with improved performance regardless of any intervention. In a large online study of over 44,000 participants, active training in sport psychology interventions was associated with improved performance, but only marginally more than for an active control condition [ 59 ]. The study involved 4-time Olympic champion Michael Johnson narrating both the intervention and active control using motivational encouragement in both conditions. Researchers should establish not only the expected size of an effect but also to specify and assess why the intervention worked. Where researchers report performance improvement, it is fundamental to explain the proposed mechanism by which performance was enhanced and to test the extent to which the improvement can be explained by the proposed mechanism(s).

Limitations

Systematic reviews are inherently limited by the quality of the primary studies included. Our review was also limited by the quality of the meta-analyses that had summarized the primary studies. We identified the following specific limitations; (1) only 12 meta-analyses summarized primary studies that were exclusively intervention-based, (2) the lack of detail regarding control groups in the intervention meta-analyses, (3) cross-sectional and correlation-based meta-analyses by definition do not test causation, and therefore provide limited direct evidence of the efficacy of interventions, (4) the extensive array of performance measures even within a single meta-analysis, (5) the absence of mechanistic explanations for the observed effects, and (6) an absence of detail across intervention-based meta-analyses regarding number of sessions, participants’ motivation to participate, level of expertise, and how the intervention was delivered. To ameliorate these concerns, we included a quality rating for all included meta-analyses. Having created higher and lower quality groups using a median split of quality ratings, we showed that effects were larger, although not significantly so, in the higher quality group of meta-analyses, all of which were published since 2015.

Conclusions

Journals are full of studies that investigate relationships between psychological variables and sport performance. Since 1983, researchers have utilized meta-analytic methods to summarize these single studies, and the pace is accelerating, with six relevant meta-analyses published since 2020. Unquestionably, sport psychology and performance research is fraught with limitations related to unsophisticated experimental designs. In our aggregation of the effect size values, most were small-to-moderate in meaningfulness with a handful of large values. Whether these moderate and large values could be replicated using more sophisticated research designs is unknown. We encourage use of improved research designs, at the minimum the use of control conditions. Likewise, we encourage researchers to adhere to meta-analytic guidelines such as PRISMA and for journals to insist on such adherence as a prerequisite for the acceptance of reviews. Although such guidelines can appear as a ‘painting by numbers’ approach, while reviewing the meta-analyses, we encountered difficulty in assessing and finding pertinent information for our study characteristics and quality ratings. In conclusion, much research exists in the form of quantitative reviews of studies published since 1934, almost 100 years after the very first publication about sport psychology and performance [ 2 ]. Sport psychology is now truly global in terms of academic pursuits and professional practice and the need for best practice information plus a strong evidence base for the efficacy of interventions is paramount. We should strive as a profession to research and provide best practices to athletes and the general community of those seeking performance improvements.

Supporting information

S1 checklist..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263408.s001

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the work of all academics since Koch in 1830 [ 2 ] for their efforts to research and promote the practice of applied sport psychology.

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When I go to a gymnastics meet and do really good, so I get that 1st place medal or trophy. It feels amazing, I mean the sport gymnastics is competitive and I sure do love competitive sports. The competitiveness gets you that rush of excitement. You feel nervous, but excited to get in there and try your hardest. Kids make better choices and have committed when they have the drawbacks of participating in competitive youth sports.

Effects Of High School Sports Essay

A common denominator that successful people share is the involvement of playing a varsity sport in high school. Every high school in the United States is different, however all encourage students to get involved. Most commonly, students decide to join sports. High school sports can cause profitable effects because students live healthier lives, achieve higher grades and learn life lessons.

Motivation Essay

Motivation is defined as the process that guides, initiates, and maintains goal orientated behavior and thought (Cherry, 2013). Motivation is what drives individuals to do what they do, whether it is something as simple as getting a drink because he or she are thirsty or something as big as getting up every day and gong to work for a paycheck.

Persuasive Essay About Sports

For some people sports is just a game, to athletes it is their life. According to the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) an athlete can only participate in their own school’s sports or club sports (OHSAA). This means at New Knoxville Local School, my school, my brother or any other athlete won’t be able to play football while attending school at New Knoxville. My intention is to make it possible to go to school at one place, but play sports at another school.

School Sports Persuasive Essay

Some schools force students to participate in organized school sports. However, I believe that schools should not make this a requirement. Some students may have medical conditions, family situations that don't allow them to participate in organized school sports, or they simply may not have the time.

Persuasive Essay Sports

Confucius once said, "he who does not do well is less guilty than he who pushes too hard." People found that competitive sports are often physically straining and it is detrimental to proper emotional development. This blows away the misconception that competitive sports create a healthy and engaging atmosphere for kids. This and an overly strong obsession with winning create a toxic mix for the child’s wellbeing. People have begun to realize the world of competitive may be doing more harm than good for their children. Parents have also begun to notice that competitive sports often injure their children severely and also make the child feel left out, which in turn is detrimental to the child 's emotional health. Therefore, competitive sports

The Role of Motivation in Enhancing Sports Performance

medals. An example of this could be a player who is offered a lot of

Self Confidence In Sports Essay

Firstly, it is vital to note that anxiety, motivation, and concentration tremendously influence people's self-confidence and their performance at the long-run (Damon & Raedeke, P 188). Higher self-confidence reduces anxiety. The vice versa is also true. This is based on the fact that optimally confident sports people experience fewer doubts on self. Their worries reduce and give room for concentration in their activities. Additionally, motivated athletes are in a better position to strive towards achieving their goal. Motivation enables sports people to combat negativity and low self-esteem as they focus more on their goals other than obstacles. Therefore, it is fundamental to note that coaches and sports people must collaborate in finding any mechanisms that could stimulate and uphold self-esteem since it is, directly and indirectly, impactful to their

Sports Psychology Essay

Sports psychology continues to evolve in order to ensure that comprehensive and evidence-based psychological services are available for athletes and teams. Giving athletes an understanding of their psychological functioning, and building the ability to implement a range of psychological strategies in competition enables athletes to both execute their skills and thrive under pressure as they strive to reach their performance potential.

Motivation is a common term used in everyday life. According to Kendra Cherry, motivation is ‘the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviours’ (Cherry, 2013). Motivation may affect our behaviour, choices and attitudes. How a person approaches a situation or their decision to act upon a situation is also known as motivation (Wong, 2000). There are many theories which explain different areas of motivation; instinct, incentive, drive, humanistic and arousal. The existence of these theories of motivation will be discussed throughout this essay. How different elements of these theories can be applied to social care settings will also be explored.

Lessons Through Sports Essay

Many life lessons can be taught through sports. Children can learn the importance of work ethic, working with others, perseverance, and the list goes on. There are studies that have shown that kids who are involved in athletics are more successful in the business world. It is only when parents turn the sporting events into an ultra-competitive requirement for their child that it can become detrimental. The lessons that sports teach kids about real life is one of the greatest benefits that can be gained from sports. Because so much can be learned through sports we need to make sure that we put focus on teaching lessons through sports rather than making it all about winning. It is a sad when parents turn a great beneficial thing into something that can be harmful for their children.

Playing Sports Essay

Students who play sports experience many more benefits that make them a more well rounded person than students who do not. It not only provides many physical benefits, but also tons of mental benefits as well. I have been involved in baseball since the age of three and can definitely visualize these benefits compared to non-student athletes. The benefits of playing sports include valuable life lessons, social skills, and future employment.

Essay On Sports Teach Life Lessons

Sport, according to the oxford dictionary, can be defined as an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Sport may seem like just another, simple five letter word yet it has the power and aptitude to teach humanity such fundamental and intellectual life lessons. In my speech I will explore these vital lessons, such as failure, success, perseverance, teamwork, tolerance, responsibility and discipline by exhibiting how each lesson can be learnt and utilised.

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340 Sports Instagram Captions That Inspire and Motivate

Finding the right Instagram captions can make your sports photos more engaging. Whether you need captions for game day, workout motivation, or celebrating a victory, a good caption can elevate your post and resonate with your followers.

Here are 340 Instagram captions specifically for sports, designed to inspire and motivate.

Funny Sports Instagram Captions

Humor can lighten the mood and bring smiles to your posts. Here are 20 funny sports captions to share:

• My favorite exercise is a cross between a lunge and a crunch. I call it lunch. 🍔
• Running late is my cardio. ⏰
• Why did the soccer player bring string to the game? So he could tie the score! ⚽
• I don’t sweat—I sparkle! ✨
• I told my coach I wanted to be a player. He said I need to work on my ‘play’ date skills! 😂
• Why do basketball players love donuts? Because they can dunk them! 🍩
• I’m just here to avoid getting fined. 💵
• I’ve got 99 problems, and a game ain’t one! 🎮
• If you think I’m cute now, wait until you see me in my game jersey! 😍
• Dear sleep, I’m coming for you after this workout! 💤
• Life is like a game of football. You have to tackle every challenge! 🏈
• Running is the only time you should ever fear ketchup. 🍅
• I wish I could be as skinny as my excuses for not working out. 😜
• Exercise? I thought you said extra fries! 🍟
• Remember, every champion was once a contender that refused to give up. But I’ll stick to my pizza! 🍕
• When you drop the ball, just pretend it was a dance move! 💃
• I play like a girl. If you don’t like it, you can take a lap! 🏃‍♀️
• In my dreams, I’m a star athlete. In reality, I’m the team mascot! 🦙
• Some days I’m a star athlete. Other days, I’m just a really good couch potato. 🥔
• The only marathon I’ll ever run is a Netflix marathon! 🎥

Short Sports Captions for Instagram

Sometimes, less is more. Here are 20 short but powerful sports captions for your posts:

• Just play. 🎮
• Chase the win. 🏆
• Play hard, play smart. 💪
• Stay focused. 👀
• Keep pushing. 🚀
• Born to win! 🌟
• Live for the game! ⚽
• No days off. 🚫
• Hustle. Hit. Never quit. 🔥
• Work hard, dream big. 🌈
• Goals are meant to be scored. 🎯
• Play like a champion! 🥇
• Victory awaits. ⏳
• Find your fire! 🔥
• Leave it all on the field. ⚾
• Stay hungry, stay foolish. 🍽️
• Elevate your game. 🌌
• Rise and grind. ☀️
• Embrace the sweat. 💦

Cute Sports Instagram Captions

Cute captions can add a fun and playful touch to your sports posts. Here are 20 adorable options to consider:

• Playing hard and looking cute! 💖
• I’d rather be playing than adulting! 🎀
• Chasing dreams and butterflies! 🦋
• This is my happy place! 🌈
• Just a girl with big goals! 🎉
• You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take—like my shots at pizza! 🍕
• My game face is always cute! 😊
• Scoring goals and stealing hearts! 💘
• I came, I saw, I played! ✨
• Life is a game, and I’m here to play! 🥰
• Just me, my team, and a whole lot of love! ❤️
• Every game is a new adventure! 🌟
• Happiness is the best sport! 😄
• Smiles and sunshine on the field! ☀️
• Keep calm and play on! 😌
• Every day is a chance to shine! ✨
• Sporty vibes and good times! 🎈
• Playing with my heart! 🥺
• Teamwork makes the dream work! 💫
• Just a little cutie with a big dream! 🥰

Unique Sports Captions for Instagram

Stand out with captions that are different and engaging. Here are 20 unique sports captions to inspire your posts:

• Sweat is just my body crying tears of joy. 😅
• Sports: where the spirit of competition meets the thrill of the game. 🌌
• On this journey, the only limits are the ones I create. 🚀
• Playing like there’s no tomorrow. ⏳
• Turning dreams into reality, one practice at a time. 🌠
• Not just a game; it’s a lifestyle! 🏃‍♀️
• Dancing with my sweat in the spotlight of hard work. 💃
• Every play is a chance to write my own story. 📖
• They told me to chase my dreams, so I sprinted. 🏃‍♂️
• Going against the odds and making it happen! 💪
• Fueling passion with perseverance. 🚴
• Where hustle meets heart in perfect harmony. ❤️‍🔥
• In this arena, we grow stronger together. 🤝
• Chasing victories and collecting memories! 🥇
• The scoreboard doesn’t define my love for the game. 🎊
• Through sweat and grit, I find my strength. 🌟
• In the game of life, we all play our part. 🎭
• When the whistle blows, everything else fades away. ⏱️
• Every challenge is an opportunity in disguise. 🔍
• Crafting champions, one day at a time! 🏅

Cool Sports Instagram Captions

Add some swag to your posts with these cool sports captions. Here are 20 options that can elevate your Instagram game:

• Keep calm and play ball. 🏀
• Good vibes and game days. ✌️
• Legends in the making! 🌟
• Game face: activated. 😎
• Play it cool, play it smart. 🧊
• On a mission to bring home the win! 🥳
• Champions are made when the crowd is gone. 🙌
• Nothing can stop me now! 🚀
• Cool under pressure. ❄️
• Living for the thrill of the game! 🔥
• Fuelled by passion and determination. 💥
• In my zone, nothing else matters. 🌌
• Rise above the noise. 🎶
• Working hard, playing harder. 💪
• Thriving in the challenge. 🌪️
• Adding a little spice to the game. 🌶️
• Rocking the field with style! 🎸
• Born for this moment! 🌠
• Stay fly, stay focused. 🕶️
• This game is my runway! 💃

Clever Sports Captions for Instagram

Witty captions can showcase your sense of humor while keeping it sporty. Here are 20 clever sports captions to consider for your posts:

• If you think I’m cute now, wait until I score! 😏
• It’s not about the shoes; it’s about the game! 👟
• I’m on a seafood diet. I see food, and I eat it—after my workout! 🍣
• Training for my next snack break! 🍩
• Why play it safe when you can play it sporty? 🎲
• Practice like a pro, party like a champ! 🎉
• If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball! 🏐
• Some days you’re the pigeon, and other days you’re the statue. 🐦
• Forget the glass slipper; this princess wears cleats! 👑
• Why did I cross the road? To kick a soccer ball! ⚽
• All I Do Is Win—except when it comes to laundry! 🧺
• Running because punching people is frowned upon. 😜
• Home is where the game is. 🏠
• Winning feels great, but the snacks afterward are better! 🍕
• Ballers gonna ball. 🎳
• Out on the field, it’s all fun and games until someone loses a shoe! 👠
• Setting goals and achieving them—like getting through a Netflix series in one sitting! 📺
• Fall down seven times, get up eight—unless you trip over a dog! 🐶
• Just because I’m sweating doesn’t mean I’m not stylish! 💁‍♀️
• Taking my game to the next level—one nap at a time! 😴

Catchy Sports Instagram Captions

Catchy captions can grab attention and make your sports posts stand out. Here are 20 catchy sports captions to inspire your next Instagram update:

• Victory starts with hard work! 🏆
• Game strong, heart stronger! 💖
• Every setback is a setup for a comeback! 🔁
• Play every game like it’s your last! 🚀
• Chasing dreams one goal at a time! 🌠
• Unstoppable and unbreakable! 💪
• Leave it all on the field! ⚡
• Believe it, achieve it! 🌟
• Where champions are made! 🥇
• Sweat, smile, repeat! 😅
• Rise. Grind. Shine. ☀️
• Born to play, forced to work! ⚽
• Got my game on and my goals set! 🎯
• Make today’s practice tomorrow’s victory! 🏅
• No limits, just opportunities! 🚀
• Defy the odds, embrace the challenge! 🔥
• Full throttle ahead! ⚙️
• Let’s get our game faces on! 😎
• Success is the sum of small efforts! 📈
• Train like a beast, play like a beauty! 💪

Game Day Captions for Instagram

Game day is special and deserves the perfect caption. Here are 20 exciting game day captions to capture the spirit of competition:

• It’s game day! Let the excitement begin! 🎉
• Bringing my A-game today! 🏅
• Win or lose, I’m still a fan! ❤️
• Time to play hard and cheer even harder! 📣
• Game on! Let’s do this! ⚽
• Fuel up, it’s time to compete! 🍽️
• A day for champions! 🥇
• From practice to game day, let’s make it count! 🔥
• Today’s forecast: 100% chance of victory! ☀️
• Keeping my game face on! 😤
• Let’s make some memories on the field! 📸
• Getting pumped for game day! 🏃‍♂️
• Nothing but good vibes today! ✌️
• Check the scoreboard; we’re just getting started! 📊
• All the hard work leads to this moment! ⏳
• Every game is a new adventure! 🌍
• Chasing dreams one game at a time! 🌠
• Who’s ready for some action? 👊
• Champions aren’t born; they’re made on game day! 💪
• Nothing can stop us now! 🚀

Team Spirit Instagram Captions

Celebrating teamwork and camaraderie is essential in sports. Here are 20 captions that capture the essence of team spirit:

• Together we achieve more! 🤝
• One team, one dream! 🌟
• United we stand, divided we fall! 💪
• Playing for each other, not just ourselves! ❤️
• Teamwork makes the dream work! 🌈
• Stronger together on and off the field! 🏆
• Great things in business are never done by one person! 🏅
• All for one and one for all! 🎉
• Good teams become great ones when their members trust each other! 🔑
• Our bond is stronger than any scoreboard! 💖
• Team spirit: the heart of the game! 🥳
• Champions are made together! 🥇
• Winning as a team is the best feeling! 🚀
• We don’t do it alone; we do it together! 🤗
• Playing hard, supporting harder! 🔥
• In this team, I found my second family! 🏠
• Making memories one game at a time! 📸
• We rise by lifting each other! 📈
• Let’s make our dreams happen together! 🌠
• Success is sweeter when shared! 🍭

Workout Motivation Captions for Instagram

Staying motivated during workouts can be a challenge. Here are 20 motivating captions to inspire you and your followers to keep pushing through:

• Push yourself because no one else will! 💪
• Every workout is a step closer to your goals! 🎯
• Strong today, stronger tomorrow! 🔥
• Believe in yourself and all that you are! 🌟
• Sweat is just fat crying! 😅
• Your only limit is you! 🚀
• Great things never come from comfort zones! 🛋️
• Make every rep count! ➕
• Fit is not a destination; it’s a way of life! 🌈
• Work hard in silence; let your success be your noise! 🔕
• Fall in love with taking care of yourself! 💖
• Success starts with self-discipline! 📏
• Don’t count the days; make the days count! ⏳
• Small steps every day will lead to big results! 📈
• One workout at a time! 🏋️‍♀️
• If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you! ⚡
• Keep going; you’re closer than you think! 🌌
• The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow! 💪
• Success is what happens after you’ve survived all your mistakes! 🌟
• When you feel like quitting, remember why you started! 🔄

Match Day Instagram Captions

Match day is full of excitement and anticipation. Here are 20 captions to capture the energy of the big day:

• It’s match day! Time to bring our A-game! ⚽
• Heart is racing, and the game is calling! 📣
• Let’s make this match unforgettable! 🎉
• Every match is a chance to shine! ✨
• Today’s goal: victory! 🏆
• Nothing tastes as sweet as a match day victory! 🍭
• Game face: ON! 😤
• Time to leave it all on the field! 💥
• No regrets, just game day vibes! 🙌
• United as one, ready to win! 🤝
• Match day magic is in the air! ✨
• Feeling the adrenaline rush! 🚀
• Here’s to teamwork, sweat, and success! 💪
• Today we play, tomorrow we conquer! 🔥
• Kickoff is just around the corner! 🕔
• Victory is in our sights! 🎯
• From practice to match day, let’s do this! 🎊
• Fueled by passion and a love for the game! ❤️
• Champions are made on match day! 🥇
• Bring on the challenge; we’re ready for it! ⚡

Post-Game Victory Captions for Instagram

Celebrating a win is one of the best feelings in sports. Here are 20 post-game victory captions to share your excitement:

• We came, we played, we conquered! 🏆
• Victorious vibes only! 🎉
• Another win in the books! 📚
• Winning feels so good! 🥳
• Hard work pays off! 💪
• Champions today, legends tomorrow! 🌟
• It’s a great day to be a winner! ☀️
• We didn’t just win; we dominated! 🔥
• Celebrating this victory together! 🤝
• The thrill of victory is unbeatable! 🥇
• Teamwork makes the dream work, and today we proved it! 🌈
• Cheers to a job well done! 🍾
• Nothing like a team that knows how to win! 🥂
• Victory tastes sweeter when shared! 🍰
• We fought hard, and it paid off! 💥
• Every second was worth the win! ⌛
• Bringing home the trophy! 🏅
• On top of the world after this win! 🌍
• Winning is a habit, and we’re just getting started! 🚀
• Let’s keep this winning streak alive! 🙌

Training Session Instagram Captions

Training sessions are crucial for improvement and growth in sports. Here are 20 captions to highlight your hard work and dedication during training:

• Train hard, play harder! 💪
• Every rep brings me closer to my goals! 🎯
• Grinding today for a better tomorrow! 🌅
• Building my strength, one session at a time! 🔨
• Success starts with consistent training! 🏋️‍♂️
• Pushing limits and breaking barriers! 🚀
• Progress, not perfection! 🌟
• Every workout is a step toward greatness! 🥇
• Focused and determined! 🧐
• Sweat, sacrifice, and success! 💦
• Turning dreams into goals! 💖
• Training like a beast today! 🦁
• Every session counts! Make them count! ⏳
• Mindset: hustle over hype! 🔥
• Challenging myself to be better every day! 📈
• Progress is progress, no matter how small! 🌱
• Great things come from consistent effort! 🍃
• Putting in the work when no one is watching! 👀
• This is where champions are made! 🏆
• Stronger than yesterday, ready for tomorrow! ⏩

Marathon Day Captions for Instagram

Marathon day is a celebration of endurance and determination. Here are 20 inspiring captions to capture the spirit of the race:

• Pain is temporary; pride is forever! 🏅
• 26.2 miles of pure determination! 💪
• Running toward my dreams, one step at a time! 🌈
• Fueled by adrenaline and a love for the run! 🚀
• Today’s race, tomorrow’s story! 📖
• The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step! 👣
• No finish line, just the next challenge! ✨
• Every mile is a memory in the making! 🏃‍♂️
• Running to the rhythm of my heart! ❤️
• One foot in front of the other! 🦶
• This is the day I’ve trained for! 🎉
• Embracing the journey, mile by mile! ⏳
• Here to cross the finish line and make my mark! ✋
• Today, I run for the joy of it! 🌟
• Marathon day vibes are the best vibes! 🎈
• It’s not just a race; it’s a celebration of perseverance! 🎊
• Every mile brings me closer to my goal! 🎯
• Stronger with every step I take! 🔥
• Running with heart and soul! 💖
• Ready, set, let’s go! 🚦

Sports Practice Instagram Captions

Practice is where skills are honed and teamwork is built. Here are 20 captions to showcase your dedication during sports practice:

• Practice doesn’t make perfect; it makes progress! 📈
• Putting in the work today for a better game tomorrow! 💪
• Every practice gets me one step closer to my goals! 🎯
• Champions are made in practice! 🏆
• Focused and ready to improve! 🔍
• Practice like a champion, play like a champion! 🥇
• Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard! ⏳
• Dedication is the name of the game! 🔥
• Sweat now, shine later! ✨
• Every drill counts! Let’s make them count! ⚡
• The grind never stops! 🏋️‍♀️
• Building teamwork, one practice at a time! 🤝
• Leaving my comfort zone for greatness! 🚀
• Practice today, victory tomorrow! 🎉
• Every session is a chance to get better! 💫
• The road to success is paved with practice! 🛣️
• Bringing my energy and passion to every practice! 💥
• Just getting my game face ready! 😤
• Every pass, every shot—practice makes perfect! 🏀

Summer Sports Camp Captions for Instagram

Summer sports camps are all about fun, friendship, and team spirit. Here are 20 captions to capture the magic of your summer sports camp experience:

• Sunshine, sports, and smiles—perfect summer vibes! ☀️
• Making memories and friends one game at a time! 🤗
• Camp life is the best life! 🏕️
• Chasing dreams and making waves this summer! 🌊
• From practice fields to lifetime friendships! 💖
• Every day is a new adventure at camp! 🌟
• Living my best summer life! 🎉
• Where every goal is a reason to celebrate! 🥳
• Training hard and playing harder! 💪
• The thrill of sports and the joy of summer—what more could I ask for? 🎈
• Here’s to long days and laughter-filled nights! 🌌
• Learning, laughing, and loving the game! 🔄
• Adventure awaits, and I’m ready! 🚀
• Every game is a step toward perfection! 🎯
• Summer goals: have fun and get fit! 🌞
• Champions are made at summer camp! 🏆
• Good vibes and good times at camp! ☯️
• From sun up to sundown, it’s game time! ⏰
• Finding my tribe and my passion this summer! 🎊
• Unplugged from the world and plugged into sports! ⚡

Championship Day Instagram Captions

Championship day is the culmination of hard work, dedication, and teamwork. Here are 20 captions to celebrate this exciting moment:

• Today’s the day we’ve all worked for! 🏆
• Championship vibes only! ✨
• Let’s go out there and show them what we’ve got! 💪
• Dream big, play hard! 🎯
• Time to make memories and chase victory! 🔥
• All the sweat, tears, and hard work lead to this moment! 💧
• Believe in yourself and in this team! 🌟
• This is what we trained for! 🏋️‍♂️
• On the road to glory, nothing can stop us! 🚀
• Today we play like champions! 🥇
• Every moment has led to this championship game! ⏳
• Let’s write our story on the field today! 📖
• Champions are made in moments like this! 🙌
• Victory isn’t given; it’s earned! 🔑
• Stronger together, pushing for the win! 🎊
• The countdown is on! Time to shine! ⏱️
• Winning is a mindset; let’s prove it today! 🌈
• Game day energy is through the roof! ⚡
• Hustle for the muscle! It’s championship time! 🏅
• Let’s leave it all on the field! 💥

Key Tips for Writing Great Sports Instagram Captions

A great caption can turn a simple sports photo into an engaging post. Here are some tips to help you write better sports Instagram captions:

Keep It Short

A short caption is easier to read and remember. Aim for one or two sentences. Shorter captions can often have a bigger impact.

Use Action Words

Action words make captions more exciting. Words like “jump,” “run,” and “score” bring energy to your post. They help share the moment with your followers.

Emojis add fun and color to your captions. They can replace words or highlight feelings. Just don’t overdo it; one or two emojis are enough.

Include Hashtags

Hashtags help more people find your posts. Use popular sports hashtags like #GameDay or #FitLife. Limit hashtags to a handful to keep your caption clean.

Show Team Spirit

Team spirit connects with fellow fans and players. Use phrases that highlight teamwork and unity. Examples include “We did it!” or “Teamwork makes the dream work.”

Famous quotes can inspire and motivate. Share lines from athletes or coaches. Make sure the quote fits the moment you’re posting about.

Be Authentic

Followers appreciate honesty. Share what you feel about the game or event. Authentic captions resonate more with your audience.

Tag Relevant People

Tagging teammates or coaches adds a personal touch. It also increases engagement as they’re likely to share your post too. Make sure to use their correct handles.

Final Thoughts

Having the right Instagram captions can enhance your sports posts. With 340 options, you can find the perfect words for any athletic moment. Choose one and watch the likes roll in.

Slava Velikiy, CEO of Rontar and GainRep, has over 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship, project management, and software development. Passionate about innovation and solving real-world problems, he shares his insights on entrepreneurship, leadership, and technology.

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