The relationships between perceived motivational climate, achievement goals and self-talk in physical education: Testing the mediating role of achievement goals and self-talk

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to explore the relationships between perceived teacher-created motivational climate, students’ achievement goals and students’ self-talk in physical education. Six hundred and seventeen students (M = 13.36 years, SD =.74) completed the Automatic Self-Talk Questionnaire for Physical Education (ASTQ-PE), the Task and Ego Orientation in Physical Education Questionnaire (TEOPEQ), the Achievement Goal Questionnaire-Revised (AGQ-R), and the Perceptions of Teacher’s Emphasis on Goals Questionnaire (PTEGQ). Structural equation modeling with latent factors was used to test the hypothesized relationships. The results revealed that mastery climate had positive and indirect effect on students’ self-talk, through task goal orientation, while performance avoidance climate had negative and direct impact on students’ thought patterns. The results confirmed some bidirectional relationships between achievement goals and self-talk. Overall, our findings stress the importance of teachers’ behaviour on students’ cognitive outcomes in physical education lessons. © 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.