Setting of The Physical Education Discussion

Journal for Research in Arts and Sports Education Peer-reviewed article Students’ motivation in a disc golf-lesson and a soccer-lesson: An experimental study in the Physical Education setting Kristian Vernegaard, Bjørn Tore Johansen and Tommy Haugen* University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway Abstract One of the purposes of physical education (PE) in both Norway and Denmark is that PE should inspire to a lifelong active lifestyle. Based on the self-determination theory, the aim of the present study was to compare students’ intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and perceived competence in a lifestyle sport inspired PE-lesson (disc golf) to a traditional PE-lesson (soccer) and general PE. In addition, we aimed to investigate whether differences in motivation and perceived competence were conditional of the students’ relative attitude toward PE. The result of the study revealed that perceived competence was higher in the disc golf-lesson compared to the soccerlesson and general PE. Setting of The Physical Education Discussion

No overall differences in intrinsic motivation were found. However, when investigating differences in intrinsic motivation according to the students’ relative attitude toward PE, the results indicated that the students with a negative attitude toward PE was significantly more intrinsically motivated in disc golf-lesson compared to soccer-lesson and general PE. The findings may be seen as further recommendations to physical educators to vary the activity choices in physical education classes. Keywords: Lifestyle sports; physical education; intrinsic motivation; extrinsic motivation; percieved competence, sports motivation Received: November, 2016; Accepted: August, 2017; Published: September, 2017 Introduction One of the purposes of physical education (PE) in both Norway and Denmark is that PE should inspire to a lifelong active lifestyle (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2016; Ministeriet for Børn og Ligestilling, 2016) and the enhancement of young individuals’ predispositions toward lifelong participation in sport and physical *Correspondence to: Tommy Haugen, Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Agder, Post Box 422, 4604 Kristiansand, Norway. Email: tommy.haugen@uia.no 2017 K. Vernegaard et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons ­ ttribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and A redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any ­purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license. Citation: K.Vernegaard.“Students’ motivation in a disc golf-lesson and a soccer-lesson: An experimental study in the Physical Education setting”. Journal for Research in Arts and Sports Education,Vol. 1, 2017, pp. 32–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.23865/jased.v1.629 32 Students’ motivation in a disc golf-lesson and a soccer-lesson activity has typically been justified in terms of a taken-for-granted role of physical education in health promotion (Cale, 2000; Shephard & Trudeau, 2010). When aiming at promoting a physically active lifestyle, PE seems a promising arena, because (almost) all children and youth are accessible in the school system (Sallis et al., 1992). Self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Deci & Ryan, 2000) is a framework of motivation that considers individuals to be actively seeking optimal challenges and new experiences to master and integrate. Deci and Ryan (1985) identified three types of motivation; intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation to account for the differing reasons why individuals engage in activities. Conditions supportive of i­ndividual’s experience of autonomy, competence, and relatedness are argued to foster the most volitional and high quality forms of motivation (intrinsic motivation; Deci & Ryan, 1985). Chatzisarantis, Biddle, and Meek (1997) revealed that the degree to which students are intrinsically motivated in PE acts as a predictor of leisure-time physical activity intentions and subsequent leisure time physical activity behavior. Setting of The Physical Education Discussion

Students whose motivation is self-determined toward PE are more likely to be physically ­active in their spare time (Standage, Duda, & Ntoumanis, 2003). Integrating the self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) in PE, a relationship between students’ intention to remain physically active past graduation and intrinsic motivation was discovered (Moreno-Murcia, Huéscar, & Cervelló, 2012; Stanley, Cumming, Standage, & Duda, 2012; Standage et al., 2003). Moreover, Chatzisarantis and Hagger (2009) identified a positive relationship between autonomous motivation in a PE-setting and intention to be active in leisure time, while a study from Bagøien, Halvari and Nesheim (2010) also indicated that motivation in the PE-domain has the potential to be transformed into both intention and motivation in leisure time activity. One of the factors used to determine the level of intrinsic motivation is perception of competence (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Students are more likely to engage in activities they believe will lead to success, assuming society rewards achievements (Sonstroem, 1997). Setting of The Physical Education Discussion

Previous research has connected adolescent’s physical activity intentions and behavior to perceived physical competence (Biddle & Armstrong, 1992; Biddle & Goudas, 1996; Kimiecik, Horn, & Shurin, 1996). Wang and Biddle (2001) have also linked perceived physical competence to intrinsic motivation in adolescents, showing that the most intrinsically motivated adolescents possessed more positive ­perceptions of their own physical competence. Weiss and Duncan (1992) showed that peer ­acceptance in youth sport was highly and positively related to levels of physical competence. Those who perceive a lack of physical competence usually find PE meaningless and are only involved because it is mandatory or because of fear of punishment (Ntoumanis, 2001). To find an activity in the PE-setting that all the students are equally satisfied with may seem difficult, because students are equipped with different preferences and interests, backgrounds, and skillsets (Graham, 2008). Green, Smith, and ­Roberts 33 K. Vernegaard et al. (2005) described sport and team games as the heart of physical educational curriculum and classified soccer as a “traditional” game, with 32 per cent of young people in England and Wales aged 11 – 16 participating in football frequently. Adolescents usually report dissatisfaction with the overrepresentation of a small number of sports in schools and express desire to experience a wider choice of activities (MacPhail, Kirk, & Eley, 2003). This is consistent with the findings of Green et al. (2005) who stated that soccer has become less popular, in participatory terms, since the early 1990’s. Weiss (2000) stated that by matching the activity to the child (and not the child to the activity), and by including so-called “lifestyle sports” in the physical education curriculum, the reductions of experts are assumed to lead to more equalized levels of competence. However, a study from Norway showed that adolescents involved in organized competitive youth sports outside school reported more positive attitudes towards PE and scored higher on self-determined motivation for PE compared to those who were not (Säfvenbom, Haugen, & Bulie, 2015). The study argues that PE in Norway seems to favor students who are involved in competitive youth sports, because a lot of the PE-content coincides with the logic of competitive youth sports. The form of “alternative” sports (as a contrast to “ordinary”, “traditional”, or “conventional” sports), such as lifestyle sports (Wheaton, 2010), are equally diverse and different as sports in general. Lifestyle sports includes a wide range of activities and the common denominator seems to be that it does not fit under the Western “achievement sport” (Eichberg, 1998) umbrella, and these activities are generally conceptualized as forms of play rather than sports (Howe, 2003). Lifestyle sports are usually regarded relatively loosely structured activities mostly controlled by the participants themselves, with free engagement-terms and flexible time schedules. According to Wheaton (2010), lifestyle sports are most often different to the competitive and masculinized western achievement sport cultures. According to Thornton (2004), disc sports, such as Ultimate and Disc Golf, are examples of lifestyle sports. Thornton (2004) argues that the “Spirit of the Game” (World Flying Disc Federation, 2016) captures relevant components of lifestyle sports. By focusing on sportsmanship, fair play, mutual respect, and basic joy of the game, disc sports may represent an alternative to the traditional sports usually seen in PE (Green et al., 2005; MacPhail et al., 2003). Based on the abovementioned reasoning, one may suggest that PE could benefit from including a wider range of activities beyond the traditional ones, because inclusion of activities with the ideology and practical framework of lifestyle sports may increase feelings of competence and intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Featherstone, 1991), and possibly also reduce extrinsic motivation. Thus, the aim of the present study was to compare students’ intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and perceived competence in a lifestyle sport PE-lesson (disc golf) to a traditional PE-lesson (soccer) and general PE. In addition, we aimed to investigate whether differences in motivation and perceived competence were conditional of the students’ relative attitude toward PE. 34 Students’ motivation in a disc golf-lesson and a soccer-lesson Hypotheses Based on the abovementioned arguments, the following hypotheses have been formulated: A.  Setting of The Physical Education Discussion

Students will experience lower levels of extrinsic motivation and higher ­levels of intrinsic motivation and perceived physical competence in a disc golflesson (lifestyle sport) compared to a soccer-lesson (traditional activity) and general PE. B. Students with the most negative attitude towards PE will experience a r­ eduction in level of extrinsic motivation and an increase in level of intrinsic motivation and perceived competence from the soccer-lesson (traditional activity) to the disc golf-lesson (lifestyle sport), whereas students with the most positive attitude towards PE will not. Methods Students from four different schools (two Norwegian and two Danish) were offered to participate, resulting in a convenience sample of 637 students that all agreed to participate in the present study. Parental consent was obtained for participants younger than the age of 16. The study was approved by the Norwegian social science data services – NSD. All the responses were anonymous and could not be traced back to individual students after the end of the study. The study design is experimental, with a crossover design, indicating that all participants were exposed to the two experimental conditions (i.e., “Lifestyle Sports Lesson”; disc golf, and “Traditional Activity Lesson”; soccer). In addition, the participants completed a pen-and-paper survey assessing their attitude and motivation toward and in PE. The experiment and subsequent data collection took place at the different schools during regular PE-lessons. Thus, students who potentially did not agree to participate in the survey were still obligated to participate in the lessons, but only participants with a signed consent answered the survey (i.e., participated in the study). Only one (1) student did not agree to participate. The project lasted for 3 weeks and was divided into 4 phases (figure 1). After the first phase (obtaining written consent), the second phase included a survey assessing their general motivation in and general attitudes toward PE. Phase 3, second week – PE-lesson 1: The participants in each class were randomly divided into two groups – group A and group B (to counterbalance the experimental conditions). Group A received a lifestyle sport based PE-lesson, where the first author was responsible for teaching disc golf to the participants. The lesson included some short technical exercises (i.e., correct throwing techniques) in addition to disc golf play (6 baskets course, groups of 3-4 students). The lesson focused on aspects central in “the spirit of the game” (World Flying Disc Federation, 2016); sportsmanship, fair play, mutual respect, and basic joy of the game. At the same time, group B participated in a “traditional” PE-lesson (represented by soccer) lead by their regular teacher. At the 35 K. Vernegaard et al. Soccer Phase 1 Group A & B Geng the declaraon of parcipaon signed Phase 2 Group A & B Setting of The Physical Education Discussion

Answer the first part of the survey Disc golf Phase 3 Group A Participate in soccer-lesson and answer the soccer-survey Phase 4 Group B Participate in soccer-lesson and answer the soccer-survey Group B Participate in disc golf-lesson and answer the disc golf-survey Group A Participate in disc golf-lesson and answer the disc golf-survey Figure 1. Illustration of study design. end of the lesson, both groups met and both groups answered the survey adjusted according to their activity (group A – disc golf modified questions, group B – soccer modified questions). This part of the survey took 10-15 minutes. Phase 4, third week – PE-lesson II: Group A and B switched activity; group A had the soccer-lesson while group B had disc golf-lesson. At the end of the lesson, the groups repeated the survey from phase 3 (group A – soccer modified questions, group B – disc golf modified questions). Measurements Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were measured using subscales from a simplified version (due to time constraints) of the Situational Intrinsic Motivational Scale – SIMS (Guay, Vallerand, & Blanchard, 2000). Item selection was based on the items with the highest factor loadings obtained in two previous studies of Norwegian adolescents (Erdvik, Øverby, & Haugen, 2014; Säfvenbom et al., 2015). SIMS is originally developed by Guay et al. (2000), and has been shown to be a valid and reliable tool in many physical activity contexts (Standage et al. 2003). The SIMS–items (4 questions measuring intrinsic motivation and 3 questions measuring extrinsic motivation) used in the present study were based on the following stem: “Why do you participate in physical education?”, and were measured on a 7-point Likert scale (Allen & Seaman, 2007) ranging from (1) “does not correspond at all” to (7) “corresponds ­exactly”. Higher scores indicate higher perceived motivation. Setting of The Physical Education Discussion

The items were in phase 3 and 4 modified to correspond to the two experimental conditions (i.e., soccer and disc golf). Perception of competence was measured using the sub-component “competence” from Basic Psychological Needs in Exercise Scale – BPNES (Vlachopoulos & Michailidou, 2006). BPNES is a self-report measure designed to assess the extent to which the innate psychological need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are fulfilled within a specific movement context (Vlachopoulos, 2008). Respondents are asked to report the extent of their agreement on a 5–point Likert scale ranging from (1) “do not agree at all” to (5) “very strongly agree” (Vlachopoulos, 2008). In the present study, the 5-point Likert scale was converted into a 7-point Likert scale ranging from (1) “do not agree at all” to (7) “very strongly agree”. Russel and Bobko (1992) recommend the use of 7-point Likert-type scales over 5-point scales and 36 Students’ motivation in a disc golf-lesson and a soccer-lesson Dawes (2008) argues that changing scale format does not necessarily destroy the comparability of historical data. The items were in phase 3 and 4 modified to correspond to the two experimental conditions (i.e., soccer and disc golf). The items used from SIMS and BPNES were converted into indexes, thus giving mean scores for intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and perceived competence. Cronbach’s alpha was used to determine the internal consistency of the s­ implified indexes. The Cronbach’s alpha in this study ranged from 0.79 (lowest) to 0.95 (­highest), which according to Cortina (1993) can be considered acceptable. When investigating the general attitude toward PE, the students were asked to evaluate the phrase; “What do you think about PE classes?” on a (1) “I dislike PE very much” to (7) “I like PE very much” Likert scale. Based on the quartiles the sample was divided into three groups (”relatively negative attitude” (rNA): < 25th percentile; “medium” (rMA): 25th percentile ≤ x ≤ 75th percentile; “relatively positive attitude” (rPA): > 75th percentile) according to their relative general attitude toward PE. Statistical analyses Reliability analysis was conducted in SPSS to determine the Cronbach’s alpha value on the simplified questionnaire to investigate the internal consistency of the instruments (Field, 2013). To examine changes in intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and perceived competence between general PE, soccer, and disc golf, repeated measures ANOVA tests were used (Field, 2013). When analyzing hypothesis B, the students were divided into three groups based on satisfaction with physical education and 3 (conditions) × 3 (groups) factorial ANOVA tests were conducted to investigate both main effects and potential interaction-effect (Field, 2013). An effect size (eta squared) close to .02 is considered small, close to . Setting of The Physical Education Discussion

13 is considered medium, and close to .26 is considered large (Field, 2013). P-values < .05 were considered statistically significant. Results In the present study 637 students from 5th to 10th grade participated. During the intervention, some participants did not complete each phase. The lowest participation rate was 74 % and the highest was 89 %, giving a mean of approximately 82 %. A summary of the demographic data is shown in table 1. Of the 637 participants, 312 were boys. 41 % of the participants were from 8th grade, while the other were spread across 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th grade. The study was conducted in two countries, and 328 participants were from the Norwegian school system, with the remaining participants from the Danish school system. Students with diverse cultural background were included and 472 only spoke the “native tongue” (i.e., either Norwegian or Danish) at home and 80 spoke both the native tongue and a foreign language at home. Subsequently, the remaining 63 participants did not speak the native tongue at home. 37 K. Vernegaard et al. Table 1. Demographical characteristics of the study sample Gender Freq. % Freq. % Boy 312 50.8 Grade Girl 302 49.2 5th 32 5.2 7th 8th 140 261 22.8 42.5 Language Native Both Foreign 472 80 63 76.8 13.0 10.2 Nationality 9th 59 9.6 10th 122 19.9 DK NO 301 328 47.9 52.1 Attitude toward PE rNA rMA rPA 155 272 210 24.3 42.7 33.0 Note. N = 637. Sample size varies because of missing data. Freq = frequency, DK = Denmark, NO = Norway, Both = both native and foreign. rNA = (Relatively) negative attitude toward PE; rMA = (Relatively) medium attitude toward PE; rPA = (Relatively) positive attitude toward PE. Table 2. Level of Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motivation and Perceived Competence according to conditions PE SO DG IM EM PC 4.93 (1.60) 4.87 (1.92) 4.98 (1.41) 4.50 (1.82)a 4.27 (1.92)a 4.31 (1.89) 5.23 (1.44)b 5.22 (1.54)c 5.40 (1.37)bc Note: a – c equal letter indicates significant difference (repeated measures ANOVA, bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons). Values are presented as mean (standard deviation). PE = general physical education; SO = soccer-lesson; DG = disc golf-lesson; IM = intrinsic motivation; EM = extrinsic motivation; PC = perceived c …