Intrinsic Motivation: Relationships with Collegiate Athletes’ Gender, Scholarship Status, and Perceptions of Their Coaches’ Behavior

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among athletes’ intrinsic motivation (IM), gender, scholarship status, perceptions of the number of their teammates receiving scholarships, and perceptions of their coaches’ behavior. Male and female college athletes (N = 386) from a variety of Division I sports completed a series of paper-and-pencil questionnaires. Multivariate analyses revealed that (a) scholarship athletes reported higher levels of IM than did nonscholarship athletes, (b) male athletes reported higher IM than did female athletes, and (c) perceived coaching behaviors were related to athletes’ IM. Specifically, athletes with higher IM perceived their coaches to exhibit a leadership style that emphasized training and instruction and was high in democratic behavior and low in autocratic behavior. In addition, athletes with higher levels of IM perceived that their coaches provided high frequencies of positive and informationally based feedback and low frequencies of punishment-oriented and ignoring behaviors. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive evaluation theory.