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

be more important than their perception of psychological need satisfaction. Our study suggests that particularly for the group of negative perceivers, instructional and pedagogical strategies should be aimed at improving their level of perceived mastery climate. Compared to the other two profiles, negative perceivers report the highest levels of achieve- ment goal avoidance, in particular the performance avoidance goals. This implies that negative perceivers have the tendency to withdraw themselves from situations during the PE lesson where comparison with peers is prominent, such as competitive game situations or when being assessed. Previous research indicates that this achievement goal avoidance predicts mal- adaptive outcomes such as lower satisfaction, self-esteem, self-confidence, performance and vitality [20,43,73]. Various studies have suggested (e.g. [74]) that these achievement goal con- structs can be positively influenced by creating a high mastery/low performance climate. For example, by having students focus on a specific task performance within a game situation or by working in same skill level groups, in which social comparison is avoided as much as possi- ble. However, in order to determine if students in a given profile may thrive better in a specific learning climate (i.e. performance or mastery climate) or benefit more from, for example, pro- viding choices during learning tasks (i.e. autonomy support) than students in another profile, further intervention studies would be needed.

In the present study, we found no significant differences between the three motivational profiles in terms of gender and age. Concerning gender, this finding is consistent with profil- ing studies by Boiche´ et al. [10] and Ntoumanis [75] who also found no association between students’ gender and membership of the favourable or less favourable motivational profiles. However, other studies have reported conflicting findings, reporting girls to be overrepre- sented in either the more [76] or less desirable profiles [62,77]. These contrasting findings may stem from differing methodological approaches but could also represent a cultural or educa- tional difference between the contexts from which the groups of students were sampled. Regardless, from a gender equality perspective, we believe our findings are favourable in that the PE teachers in the schools of our sample apparently succeed in creating learning environ- ments that neither favour boys nor girls in the less desirable profiles. Our findings regarding age contrast with research indicating that older students are overrepresented in low-quality motivation clusters, and younger students being underrepresented [10,62,76]. Limitations Since our study employed a cross-sectional design, causality cannot be inferred. In order to con- clude with any certainty whether a desirable motivational climate is responsible for changing the quality of motivation of students, valuation of PE or even leisure time sport participation, intervention research is needed. Moreover, in this study the motivational PE climate was deter-

mined by the perceptions of students only. There is no data on which it can be concluded whether the PE classes were, in fact, mastery or performance orientated or psychological need supportive or frustrating. We removed 268 students from the sample due to missing data. It cannot be ruled out that these students were not representative of the whole group. However, we expect the possible impact of this (with a remaining N = 2562) to be within acceptable limits. Furthermore, although this study provides a quantitative insight into students’ perceptions of the motivational learning climate in Dutch secondary school PE, qualitative research is needed to gain more detailed insight and understanding of students’ experiences and needs in PE. Conclusion This study demonstrated that secondary school students in the Netherlands can be grouped in distinct motivational profiles based on how they perceive the PE environment. These profiles Similar but different PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228859 February 10, 2020 12 / 17