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

than on absolute values within the three cluster variables. All profiles differ significantly (p<0.01) with regard to autonomy satisfaction, autonomy frustration, competence satisfac- tion, competence frustration, relatedness satisfaction, relatedness frustration, and perception of the motivational climate (mastery versus performance). Moderate perceivers is the largest of the three profiles (N = 1,080; 42.2%). Students in this profile report higher levels of perceived need satisfaction than need frustration, and a per- ceived mastery climate rather than a performance climate. Their scores approximately corre- spond to the mean of the entire population. Negative perceivers (N = 834; 32.5%) report the lowest perceived satisfaction and highest perceived frustration of all three basic psychological needs. Also, they score lowest on perceived mastery climate and highest on perceived perfor- mance climate, even though the former still scores higher than the latter. Positive perceivers (N = 648; 25.3%) reported the highest and lowest levels of psychological need satisfaction and frustration, respectively. They perceive the PE class climate as highly mastery oriented. To further describe the profiles, we compared additional characteristics of students in the three profiles, demographic characteristics (i.e., gender, age), motivational characteristics (i.e., achievement goal orientation, motivational regulation), and PE-related characteristics (leisure time sport participation, valuation of PE). Chi-squared tests and one-way ANOVA’s were used

to examine the possible link between profile membership and these additional characteristics of students. No significant profile assignment effect by gender (χ 2 (2, n = 2,562) = .69, p >.05), and average age (F(2, 2559) = 1.322, p>.05) was found. Males and females were equally distributed across the three profiles, and no significant age differences between groups were found (see Table 4). Analysis of variance with post-hoc tests revealed a significant link between cluster member- ship and students’ achievement goal orientation and motivational regulation (see Table 5). Concerning the achievement goal orientation, students in all three profiles report the highest scores on mastery approach goals (see Table 5). However, the score of the negative perceivers is significantly lower (3.13/5) than the moderate (3.5/5) and positive perceivers (4.02/5), and almost equal to their score on the performance avoidance goals (3.08/5). The positive perceivers showed the clearest contrast between mastery approach goals (4.02/5) and mastery avoidance goals (1.88/5). With respect to the motivational regulation the positive perceivers showed sig- nificantly higher levels of autonomous motivation than both moderate perceivers and negative perceivers. Negative perceivers showed significantly higher levels of controlled motivation and amotivation compared to moderate perceivers and positive perceivers (see Table 5). For leisure time sport participation (LTSP), significant differences were also found between

profiles, χ 2 (4, n = 2562) = 74.33, p < .001. Students who reported LTSP less than once a week Table 4. Group differences on demographic characteristics. Total Profile 1 negative perceivers Profile 2 moderate perceivers Profile 3 positive perceivers Demographic characteristics N (%) N (%) N (%) p Gender Male 364 (32%) 490 (43%) 284 (25%) p>.05 Female 470 (33%) 590 (41%) 364 (26%) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) p F ω Average age 14.65 (1.38) 14.64 (1.39) 14.62 (1.39) 14.73 (1.37) p>.05 1.32 .02 Note. Percentages are row percentages https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228859.t004 Similar but different PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228859 February 10, 2020 9 / 17