The Influence of Motivational Behaviours and Goal Profiles on Positive Youth Development

Positive Youth Development (PYD) research has started to shift focus onto how different internal factors such as temperament, dispositions, and/or personality characteristics could influence levels of PYD for youth participating is organized sport. The purpose of this study is to examine how different goal profiles, specifically categorized by diverse levels of task and ego orientation, can influence levels of PYD in an organized youth sport setting. One hundred youth sport participants (mean age = 16.8) completed the short form Youth Experiences Survey for Sport (short form YES-S; Sullivan et al., 2013) to measure PYD, as well as the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ; Duba 1989) to assess each athlete’s goal profile. A TwoStep Cluster Analysis was used to classify each individual’s personal goal profile into 3 statistically different cluster groupings. Results indicated significant interaction between the PYD outcome factor of Initiative vs. Clusters [F(2,95)= 10.86, p < 0.001, p2= 0.19] as well as Goal Setting vs. Clusters [F(2,95)= 3.95, p < 0.05, p2= 0.08]. Post-hoc analyses provided results that suggest that those athletes who are more task oriented have fostered more positive outcomes from sport, therefore having more goal setting skills and initiative.