Motivation and basic psychological needs in basketball initiation

Abstract

Motivation is considered an important factor for the success and maintenance of the practice in any sport. The objective of the study was to correlate the motivation and basic psychological needs of young basketball athletes who were in the initiation phase of sport. The research involved 53 athletes from the city of Maringá - Paraná - Brazil, with an average age of 13.25 years (PD 2.54 years). The instruments used in the research were the sport motivation scale and the exercise basic psychological needs questionnaire. The Spearman test was used for data analysis, assuming a significance level of 95 % (p<0.05). The results showed that the dimensions of basic psychological needs are not uniformly correlated with the dimensions of motivation. The greatest correlation found was between competition and extrinsic motivation introjection, which shows that the internal pressures of the athlete himself and the fear of constraint make the practitioner develop greater competence to perform the proposed activities. Furthermore, the relationship dimension was only linked to aspects related to extrinsic motivation, where good relationships favour knowledge, testing and the search for pleasure in the sport. Finally, autonomy showed a moderate relationship with intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.

Keywords

• deporte
• escuela
• motivación
• teoría de la autodeterminación
• iniciación deportiva.