Similar but different: Profiling secondary school students based on their perceived motivational climate and psychological need-based experiences in physical education

RESEARCH ARTICLE Similar but different: Profiling secondary school students based on their perceived motivational climate and psychological need- based experiences in physical education Gwen WeeldenburgID1,2*, Lars B. Borghouts1, Menno Slingerland1, Steven VosID1,2 1 School of Sport Studies, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 2 Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands * g.weeldenburg@fontys.nl Abstract The purpose of this study was to provide more insight into how the physical education (PE) context can be better tailored to the diverse motivational demands of secondary school stu- dents. Therefore, we examined how different constructs of student motivation in the context of PE combine into distinct motivational profiles, aiming to unveil motivational similarities and differences between students’ PE experiences. Participants were 2,562 Dutch second- ary school students, aged 12–18, from 24 different schools. Students responded to ques- tionnaires assessing their perception of psychological need satisfaction and frustration, and perceived mastery and performance climate in PE. In order to interpret the emerging profiles additional variables were assessed (i.e. demographic, motivational and PE-related vari- ables). Two-step cluster analysis identified three meaningful profiles labelled as negative perceivers, moderate perceivers and positive perceivers. These three profiles differed sig- nificantly with regard to perceived psychological need satisfaction and frustration and their

perception of the motivational climate. This study demonstrates that students can be grouped in distinct profiles based on their perceptions of the motivational PE environment. Consequently, the insights obtained could assist PE teachers in designing instructional strategies that target students’ differential motivational needs. Introduction One of the main aims of Physical Education (PE) in the Netherlands is to provide students with competencies that enable and encourage them to participate in sports and physical activ- ity (PA) in and outside of the school setting [1,2]. In order for students to develop these com- petencies within the psychomotor, cognitive and affective domain, they should be sufficiently motivated to actively partake in the PE lessons. Unfortunately, motivation of Dutch students has been found to decrease from the end of primary school into secondary school [3]. The PE teacher is therefore challenged to find ways to motivate all students to actively engage in physi- cal activities during PE lessons. PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228859 February 10, 2020 1 / 17 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Weeldenburg G, Borghouts LB, Slingerland M, Vos S (2020) Similar but different: Profiling secondary school students based on their perceived motivational climate and psychological need-based experiences in physical education. PLoS ONE 15(2): e0228859. https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0228859 Editor: Heather Erwin, University of Kentucky, UNITED STATES Received: December 6, 2019

Accepted: January 25, 2020 Published: February 10, 2020 Peer Review History: PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process; therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. The editorial history of this article is available here: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228859 Copyright: © 2020 Weeldenburg et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.