Specificities Of Motivation Profile Of Young Athletes Of Serbia

Authors

Bačanac Ljubica, Serbian Institute for Sport and Sport Medicine
Radović Mileva, Serbian Institute for Sport and Sport Medicine
Vesković Ana, Faculty of Sports and Physical Education, University of Belgrade

Abstract

The research is done in order to describe motivational profile of young athletes defined by the influences that led them to sport, basic reasons (motives) for their practicing sports and expectations, long-term aims related to sport. The sample consists of 400 athletes of both sexes, the participants of the sport camp organized by the Ministry of Education and Sport named “Karataš 2004”. The sample consists of young talented athletes of different sport disciplines, at the age from 12 to 18 and with sport experience of at least one year. The data about young athletes’ motivation are obtained by means of the SSMS/97 Questionnaire which has 30 questions of open and closed type designed to estimate the family, accommodation and financial situation of the athletes, to explore their sport activity and the basic reasons for going in for sports.
The results of the preliminary descriptive analysis confirm that the decision for going in for sports is, above all, a matter of personal (inner) nature, because approximately 59.3% of young people decide to go in for sports on their own initiative, i.e. to satisfy their personal needs and motives. Among other important persons under whose influence they mostly go in for sports, we can mention parents (22.3%), peers (7.0%), other important persons and sport idols (6.1%) and P.E. teachers (3.6%). The structure of motivation of subjects is obtained by rating several motives according to their importance to each individual, and the data related to the frequency of naming a motive at the first place look like this: health (48.4%), love for sport (30.1%), achieving success (9.6%), aesthetic reasons (4.6%), making friends (3.6%).
The data unquestionably confirm the fact that young people see their sport activity as a factor of improving and maintaining the health, as well as an area for achieving success and confirming their own competence. Money, popularity, fun and traveling do not belong to the list of priority motives. The data related to long-term aims and aspiration levels do not belong to the priority motive group. The data related to long-lasting aims and aspiration levels also confirm the fact that their motivation is above all intrinsic. In most young athletes task and mastery orientation and self-competence are dominant. Competitive or ego orientation is more present in experienced and female athletes, whereas a number of athletes with instrumental aim orientation (sport in the function of meeting the more important existential needs) is negligibly small.

Keywords

young athletes, motivation profile, long term aspirations, goal orientations, gender, sports experience

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References

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