MOTIVATING ATHLETES: LITERATURE REVIEW
How can coaches motivate athletes to perform to the best of their ability? The review of literature presented here attempts to answer this question by examining salient research. All studies examined are analyzed in terms of how they defined motivation, their research questions, sample subjects, data collection/analysis methods, findings, and conclusions. The review ends with a summary of research findings and an application of these to motivating athletes to perform at their personal best.
Even a cursory review of the literature on motivation in relation to athletic performance indicates that researchers define and measure it in very different ways. For example, a substantial body of the literature defines motivation in terms of need achievement. Breheny (2002), for example, looked at motivation in marathon running using the need achievement model. According to the author, the need achievement model of motivation holds that athletes perform best when they are intrinsically motivated; that is when, they have an internal and personal need to achieve at a high standard of performance as opposed to external needs such as the need for a high salary or status. In her study, Breheny (2002) examined the need achievement motivation levels of 292 individuals who were recruited from exercise and sports clubs in Virginia in order to determine whether those with higher need achievement motivation performed at higher levels. All subjects in the study completed a demographic questionnaire and three achievement motivation measures. Based on background criteria, runners were assigned to one of four comparison groups. Sedentary Individuals, Fitness Level Runners, High Volume Recreational Runners, and High Volume Marathon Runners.
Analyses performed on collected data showed that runners, regardless of level of involvement in the sport, demonstrated greater mastery and competitiveness needs than sedent...