Examining early adolescents' motivation for physical education: associations with actual and perceived motor competence.

Background: The dynamic nature of physical education (PE) requirescareful consideration of lesson planning and delivery in order topromote health and wellbeing and to achieve various learning goals.One such goal is promoting personal and social development to supportstudents to value and lead a healthy and active lifestyle, especiallyduring transition into adolescence. In order to design learningenvironments that support students' engagement in PE, it is importantto understand how outcomes such as motor competence (MC) influencemotivation for PE. There are two approaches to understand MC, actualand perceived MC, and both have implications for healthy lifestyles inchildhood and adolescence. Therefore, this study examined associationsof actual and perceived MC with young adolescents' motivation for PE.Method: A sample of 236 students 11-14 years of age (M = 13.01, SD = .72)participated in the study. Assessments included actual MC(Körperkoordinations test for Kinder; KTK), perceived MC (self-administered form of the pictorial scale of Perceived Movement SkillCompetence; PMSC) and motivation for PE (Perceived Locus of CausalityScale; PLOC). Polynomial regression with Response Surface Analyseswere conducted to examine the influence of actual and perceived MCon motivation for PE.Findings: The results showed weak-to-moderate positive associations ofactual and perceived MC with students' motivation for PE. Perceived MCexplained about 12% of the variance of student's self-determinedmotivation towards PE. This effect was larger in students with lowerlevels of perceived MC compared to students with higher levels ofperceived MC.Discussion: Taking into account that both actual and perceived MC aresynergistically related but only perceived MC explains self-determinedmotivation, our results suggest that perceived MC is an important factorto consider when attempting to promote an active and healthy lifestyle.Using the developmental model of motor competence [Stodden et al.2008. "A Developmental Perspective on the Role of Motor SkillCompetence in Physical Activity: An Emergent Relationship." Quest 60(2): 290-306] and self-determination theory [Deci and Ryan 2000. "The"What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior." Psychological Inquiry 11 (4): 227-268. doi:10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01], we discuss the findings in relation tothe importance of considering perceived MC as an explicit outcome in thePE curriculum.Conclusion: During early adolescence, PE programs should not only focuson teaching movement skills but also fostering perceived MC in order topromote motivation for PE, especially among students with lower levelsof self-perception. For this, pedagogical approaches such as needsupportive teaching derived from self-determination theory can be usedto help students become competent, confident and motivated movers.