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Intrinsic Motivation
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The topic that I wanted to do research on was the effect of a coach’s leadership style on an athlete’s intrinsic motivation. I also wanted to find out how an athlete’s scholarship status has an effect on their intrinsic motivation. I think this topic is important for the field of sport and physical activity to investigate because everyone in this field should be familiar with how a coach’s leadership style and an athlete’s scholarship status effects the outcome of an athlete’s intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation to engage in an activity for its own sake. People who are intrinsically motivated work on tasks because they find them enjoyable. In the next couple of paragraphs I will comment on the research that I have found on how intrinsic motivation is effected by a coach’s leadership style and an athlete’s scholarship status (Kerr, 1997). For the first research article that I found, the study examined whether the intrinsic motivation levels of first-year college athletes changed from pre- to post-season as a function of their scholarship status or their perceptions of their coaches’ behavior. 72 division I athletes completed questionnaires assessing their intrinsic motivation at the beginning and end of their first year of participation. They also reported their scholarship status and their perceptions of their coaches’ behavior over the season (Amorose and Horn 2001). Research conducted in the sport setting has found that coaches’ leadership styles and behaviors influence athletes’ psychological responses such as their self-esteem, perceptions of competence, affect, and motivation. Behaviors exhibited by coaches can also influence athletes’ level of intrinsic motivation. For instance, studies examining the role of verbal feedback on intrinsic motivation have found that positive feedback is associated with higher levels of intrinsic, whereas negative feedback is associated with lower levels of intrinsic motivation (Amorose and Horn, 2001). According to the cognitive evaluation theory, the use or non-use of external reward have a significant influence on individuals’ level of intrinsic motivation. Receiving a reward can be perceived by an individual as an indication of competence (for example, receiving a scholarship to participate in collegiate sports). The researchers thought that athletes who were on a scholarship world report less intrinsic motivation than the non-scholarship athletes. They thought this because of the fact that the athletes were being paid for doing an activity that was already intrinsically pleasing (Amorose and Horn, 2001). To conduct this experiment, the researchers used different questionnaires including the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI). The results of this experiment concluded that there were no differences between scholarship and non-scholarship athletes on the changes in intrinsic motivation. When looking at coaching behavior and intrinsic motivation there was a positive relationship between training-instruction and changes in the athletes’ levels of intrinsic motivation and a negative relationship between autocratic behavior and changes in intrinsic motivation. In an autocratic leadership style where the coach makes all of the decisions regarding the team without asking the athlete’s opinion would result in lower self-determination, which would ultimately lead to lower intrinsic motivation.
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