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Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1441–1449

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Goal orientations and perceptions of the motivational climate inphysical education classes among Colombian students

Jairo Flores, Alfonso Salguero, Sara Marquez�

Department of Physical Education, University of Leon, University Campus, 24071 Leon, Spain

Received 29 August 2007; received in revised form 7 November 2007; accepted 7 November 2007

Abstract

This study examined the relationships of achievement goal orientations and perceptions of the motivational climate in

physical education classes among Colombian students, and tested gender and age differences in goal orientations and

perceived motivational climate. Participants (1378 boys and 1615 girls, ranging in age from 9 to 18 yr) completed the Task

and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ), and the Learning and Performance Orientations in Physical

Education Classes Questionnaire (LAPOPECQ). Bivariate and canonical correlation analysis identified conceptually

consistent relationships between goal orientations and perceptions of motivational climate. Boys scored higher than girls in

ego orientation and in perceptions of performance orientation. Task and ego goal orientations, and perceptions of learning

or performance orientations decreased with age. Data obtained indicate that the Spanish versions of the TEOSQ and the

LAPOPEQ could be useful instruments for physical education teachers, helping them to identify achievement goal

orientation of their students and perceptions of the motivational climate in their education classes.

r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Goal orientations; Perceived motivational climate; Physical education students; Gender; Age

1. Introduction

Participation in youth sports and physical educa-tion is an accepted part of childhood developmentin western countries (Salguero, Gonzalez-Boto,Tuero, & Marquez, 2003). The sports participationmotivation literature has focused on reasons whypeople, particularly children, engage in sport ordiscontinue their participation (Molinero, Salguero,Tuero, Alvarez, & Marquez, 2006). A simpledescription of motives, however, will not necessarily

ee front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

te.2007.11.006

ing author. Tel.: +34987 291258;

1267.

ess: sara.marquez@unileon.es (S. Marquez).

provide information about how young people viewthe sports or physical education experience, andfurther exploration of motivation is required using atheoretical approach (Zahariadis & Biddle, 2000).Goal perspective theory postulates that two goaldimensions predominate in achievement contexts(Nicholls, 1989). An ego goal dimension is related todemonstrating a superior performance compared toothers, and a task dimension is related to taskmastery or personal improvement. Goal perspectivetheory implies that dispositional achievement goalorientations influence motivation. Research sug-gests that task-oriented subjects are more satisfiedand interested in practicing and enjoying sports andphysical education than are ego-oriented subjects

.

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(Duda, Chi, Newton, Walling, & Catley, 1995).Task-oriented participants are likely to adopt moreintrinsic motivational patterns and ego-orientedindividuals more likely report motives associatedwith recognition and status (White & Duda, 1994).

Although individual differences exist in theproneness for task and ego involvement (Duda,1996), goal orientations also differ as a function ofsituational demands, and another line of researchhas considered how goal orientations are manifestedin social situations. According to Ames (1992), amastery-oriented climate exists when individualsperceive that effort, learning, and participation arevalued and emphasized by the teacher, and this goalstructure is linked to task orientation. In contrast, ina performance-oriented climate, students perceive afocus on interpersonal competition, and socialcomparison, and this is related to ego orientation.

Although considerable research has been carriedout to test the predictions of the goal perspective insports settings (Cervello & Santos Rosa, 2001;Newton & Duda, 1999; Skejsol & Halvari, 2005),fewer studies have been performed to apply and testthe concept of goal perspective within physicaleducation (Cervello, Jimenez, Del Villar, Ramos, &Santos Rosa, 2004; Walling & Duda, 1995). Toassess the student’s perceptions of motivationalclimate in this context, an adaptation of thePerceived Motivational Climate in Sport Question-naire-2 (PMCSQ-2) (White, Kavussanu et al., 1998),or the Learning and Performance Oriented PhysicalEducation Climate Questionnaire (LAPOPECQ)have been generally used (Goudas & Biddle, 1994;Papaioannou, 1994, 1998). The research findings inthe physical education setting have generally identi-fied a conceptual link between goal orientationand perceptions of the motivational climate, withego-oriented individuals perceiving the motivationalclimate of their physical education class as perfor-mance-oriented and task-oriented students tendingto perceive it as learning-oriented (Papaioannou& Theodorakis, 1996). The perception of an ego-involving climate is linked with higher levels ofsomatic anxiety (Papaioannou & Kouli, 1999) andthe participants report that ability is an importantdeterminant of achievement (Van Yperen &Duda, 1999). These findings imply that teachers needto create a high task-involving climate to motivateintrinsic motivation (Digelidis, Papaioannou, Lapar-idis, & Christodoulidis, 2003).

In exercise and sport psychology it is important toconsider the possibility that cultural differences

influence the outcomes, creating the necessity ofcross-cultural analysis (Duda & Allison, 1990;Gauvin & Russell, 1993). Questionnaires developedfor a target population should be adapted to newcontexts maintaining the conceptual equivalence ofthe original measures and with the structure of theadapted instruments evaluated statistically with aculturally appropriate sample (Yoo, 1999). Themajority of studies examining motivational theorieshave involved Euro-American participants, theresults of which may not apply to other culturalcontexts (Li, Harmer, Acock, Vongjaturapat, &Boonverabut, 1997; Maehr & Nicholls, 1980). Thepossibility for a cultural differentiation in thepresence of separated ego and task goal orientationshas been proposed (Cervello & Santos Rosa, 2001).More work should therefore be done regarding thegeneralization of measures assessing goal orienta-tion and perceptions of motivational climate.

To date, the concept of goal perspectives and theperception of motivational climate have not beenexamined in the Latin American population.Despite the legislation on requirement, in mostLatin American countries there has been a decreasein the actual number of physical education classes.Colombia is an exception, in which the quality andorganization of physical education has improved(Hardman & Marshall, 2005). However, differencesin perceptions with regard to physical education andschool sport, which could be determined by featuresof culture, have been reported between English andColombian students (Dismore & Bailey, 2004). Thefirst objective of this research was to providepsychometric evidence of the validity and reliabilityfor the Spanish versions of established measures toassess goal orientation and perceived motivationalclimate in physical education classes, amongColombian students. A secondary objective was toanalyze the relationship between goal orientationand perceived motivational climate. It was hypothe-sized that ego orientation would be positivelyassociated with a performance-oriented motiva-tional climate while task orientation will be asso-ciated with a learning-oriented motivationalclimate.

It was further investigated whether gender andage differences in goal orientations and perceivedmotivational climate existed. It has been shown thatboys tend to be more concerned with winning anddemonstrating their ability in competitive contextsthan girls (White & Duda, 1994). Furthermore,gender differences in achievement motivational

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patterns are consistent with perceptions of themotivational climate (White, Duda, & Keller,1998). Considering the male-dominant culture inthe Colombian society (Williams & Guerrieri, 1999),boys in this study were expected to be higher in egoorientation and have perceptions of a more perfor-mance-oriented climate than girls.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

Participants were 2993 students (1378 boys and1615 girls) from six secondary schools randomlyselected in the Department of Santander, Colombia.Age ranged from 9 to 18 yr (M ¼ 13.5, SD ¼ 1.7). Allphysical classes were coeducational. Students partici-pated in physical education lessons three times perweek for about 60min each lesson. For comparisonpurposes participants were divided into two agegroups: 9–13 yr (n ¼ 1494), and 14–18 yr (n ¼ 1499).

2.2. Instruments

2.2.1. Task and Ego Orientation in Sport

Questionnaire (TEOSQ)

To assess disposition towards task and egoachievement goal orientations, participants com-pleted the Spanish version (Peiro & Sanchıs, 2004)of the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Ques-tionnaire (TEOSQ) adapted to physical educationclasses (Walling & Duda, 1995). The TEOSQ assessdisposition towards task and ego achievement goalorientations and elicits scores on task (8 items) andego (8 items) orientation through the stem ‘‘I feelmost successful in physical education classes wheny’’. Participant’s responses are scored on a 5-pontLikert scale anchored by ‘‘strongly disagree’’ (1) and‘‘strongly agree’’ (5). The Spanish version hasdemonstrated satisfactory internal consistency inprevious studies, the coefficients alpha being .84 and.90 for the Task and Ego subscales, respectively.The hypothesized theoretical model of two factorshas been supported by confirmatory factor analysis(Peiro & Sanchıs, 2004).

2.2.2. Learning and Performance Orientations in

Physical Education Classes Questionnaire

To assess perceptions of the motivational climatefor a physical education class, the Spanish version(Jimenez, Santos-Rosa, Garcıa, Iglesias, & Cervello,2004) of the LAPOPECQ (Papaioannou, 1994,

1998) was administered. The 27-item LAPOPECQitems follow the stem ‘‘In this physical educationclassy’’ and were answered on a 5-point Likertscale ranging from 1 (‘‘strongly disagree’’) to 5(‘‘strongly agree’’). The questionnaire consists oftwo high-order factors, measuring perceptions oflearning and performance goals, and five lower-order factors, two of them subfactors of theperformance-oriented factor (Teacher-InitiatedLearning Orientation and Students’ Learning Or-ientation) and the remaining three subfactors of theperformance-oriented factor (Students’ CompetitiveOrientation, Outcome Orientation Without Effortand Students’ Worries About Mistakes). TheSpanish version of the LAPOPECQ has shown asatisfactory reliability, with coefficients alpha of .85for the two high-order factors of the questionnaire(Jimenez et al., 2004). In addition, participants wereasked to complete a questionnaire assessing demo-graphic information such as gender and age.

2.3. Procedures

After receiving permission from the schooladministration boards, informed consent was ob-tained from the participants and their parents. Theparticipants were asked to meet with the researchersin quiet classroom conditions at the time of aphysical education class. Prior to the administrationof the inventories, subjects were informed of thenature of the study and were informed thatparticipation was voluntary. Anonymity was guar-anteed and assurance that all data would be keptstrictly confidential was given. Participants wereasked to answer each item as honestly as possible.The researchers were especially careful to help theyounger children to interpret the questionnaireswhen necessary. To fill the scales always took lessthan 30min. Questionnaires were administered atapproximately the half-way mark of the academicyear to ensure that the motivational climate hadbeen established.

2.4. Data analysis

The internal consistency of each scale of theTEOSQ and the LAPOPECQ was calculated usingCronbach’s alpha statistics (Cronbach, 1951). Theproposed underlying factor structure of both ques-tionnaires was investigated by carrying out aconfirmatory factor analysis using AMOS Version5.0 (Arbuckle, 2003). Bivariate and multivariate

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relationships between goal orientations and percep-tions of motivational climate were examined byPearson’s correlation coefficients and canonicalcorrelation analysis, respectively. In order to deter-mine whether goal orientations and perceptions ofmotivational climate differed by gender and age,scores for the different subscales were used asdependent variables in a 2 (gender)� 2 (age) multi-variate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Signifi-cant multivariate effects were followed up withunivariate analyses using Wilk’s method (Tabach-nick & Fidell, 2000). Because the large sample sizecould inflate the probability of statistical signifi-cance, statistical meaningfulness (effect size) wasprovided by Cohen’s f (Cohen, 1988). Data were logtransformed to approach normality. Missing datawere under 5% in any given variable and wereimputed by the maximum likelihood estimationmethod. All analyses were performed using SPSS14.0 for windows.

3. Results

3.1. Psychometric properties of the questionnaires

and descriptive statistics

To produce the covariance matrix in estimatingthe factor structures of the Spanish versions of theTEOSQ and the LAPOPECQ, the maximum like-lihood method was used. Considering that thehierarchical model for the LAPOPECQ consistedof five first-order and two second-order factors, inthe first high-order factor, the two-learning-orientedfactors were freed and the rest were fixed to zero. Inthe second higher-order factor, the two-learning-oriented factors were fixed to zero and the remain-ing were freed. Because w2 is related to the degrees offreedom in the model, results were expressed as the

Table 1

Alpha coefficients and descriptive statistics for goal orientations and p

Alpha Mean

Goal orientation

Task .86 4.30

Ego .79 3.24

Motivational climate

Teacher-initiated learning orientation .80 4.06

Students’ learning orientation .74 4.26

Students’ competitive orientation .66 3.48

Students’ worries about mistakes .65 3.20

Outcome orientation without effort .60 2.66

minimum value of the discrepancy divided by itsdegrees of freedom (CMIN/DF). Relative fit in-dexes such as the goodness of fit index (GFI), thecomparative fit index (CFI), the Tucker–Lewisindex (TLI) and the standardized root mean squareresidual (SRMR) were also calculated to determinethe model fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999; McDonald &Ringo Ho, 2002).

The GFI measures the relative amount ofvariance and covariance of the data matrix ex-plained by the model, while the CFI and TLI(Joreskog & Sorbom, 1984; Tucker & Lewis, 1973)measure the proportionate improvement in fit of thetarget model against a more restricted baselinemodel, and the SRMR (Browne & Cudeck, 1993) isindicative of the extent of unaccounted variance inthe model. For the first three indices, the closer to 1,the better the fit, while for the SRMR andCMIN/DF, lower values indicate a better fit(Papaioannou, 1994). Values obtained both for theTEOSQ (GFI .95, CFI .97, TLI .98, RMSR .04 andCMIN/DF 1.37) and for the LAPOPECQ (GFI .92,CFI .94, TLI .97, RMSR .05 and CMIN/DF 1.78)reflect a satisfactory fit.

The internal reliability coefficients, determined bycalculating the Cronbach alpha for all subscales, areshown in Table 1, and reached or approached theminimum level of acceptance (Nunnally, 1978).Although alphas for Students’ Competitive Orien-tation, Students’ Worries About Mistakes andOutcome Orientation Without Effort were lessthan .70, which is generally considered ‘‘low’’, theyare acceptable for exploratory purposes (Molineroet al., 2006; Pedhazur & Pedhazur, 1991).

Table 1 also contains the means, standarddeviations, skewness, and kurtosis of measurementvariables. In general, the group of students scoredhigher in task orientation than in ego orientation.

erceived motivational climate

Standard deviation Skewness Kurtosis

.62 �.89 1.18

.89 �.30 �.45

.72 �.87 1.91

.63 �.99 .83

.79 �.34 .12

.91 �.20 �.36

.90 �.40 �.52

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Table 3

Canonical loadings for goal orientations and perceived motiva-

tional climate

Variable Function 1

loading

Function 2

loading

Goal orientation

Task .64 �.49

Ego �.91 .94

Motivational climate

Teacher-initiated learning

orientation

.31 �.47

Students’ learning orientation .48 �.39

Students’ competitive orientation �.70 .74

Students’ worries about mistakes .04 .59

Outcome orientation without effort �.36 .34

J. Flores et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1441–1449 1445

With regard to the motivational climate, factorsimplying a learning-oriented climate received higherscores than those implying a performance-orientedclimate.

3.2. Relationships between variables

A bivariate correlation analysis was employedto determine multicollinearity between subscales(Table 2). Pearson’s correlation coefficients indi-cated that task orientation had a high relationshipwith the learning-oriented factors and a lowrelationship with two of the performance-orientedfactors of the LAPOPECQ, whereas relationships ofego orientation were stronger with the performance-oriented factors than with the learning-orientedfactors. The two learning-oriented factors of theLAPOPECQ were strongly related to each other,and moderate correlations were also found betweenthe different performance-oriented factors.

Canonical correlation analysis was performed toexamine the multivariate relationship between taskand ego orientation and motivational climateperceptions. Two significant canonical functionsemerged (Wilk’s lambda ¼ 589; r ¼ .567; po.01;Table 3). A factor has to load at least .30 on anyfunction to be considered significant (Tabachnick &Fidell, 2000). Function 1 showed a goal perspectiveconsistent with a negative ego orientation and apositive task orientation. This goal perspective waspositively related to teacher-initiated learning or-ientation and students’ learning orientation, andnegatively related to students’ competitive orienta-tion and to outcome orientation without effort.Function 2 had a positive ego orientation and anegative task orientation. This goal perspective wasnegatively related with the two learning-oriented

Table 2

Bivariate correlations between all subscales

Ego

orientation

Teacher-

initiated

learning

orientation

Task orientation .14 .45

Ego orientation .19

Teacher-initiated learning orientation

Students’ learning orientation

Students’ competitive orientation

Students’ worries about mistakes

Note: All correlations greater than .07 are significant at po.01.

factors and positively related with the threeperformance-oriented factors of the LAPOPECQ.The canonical redundancy analysis showed thatfunctions 1 and 2 accounted for 23.6% and 15.5%of the variance, respectively.

3.3. Gender and age differences in goal orientations

and perceived motivational climate

AMANOVA was conducted with gender and agegroup as the independent variables. Scores for eachsubject on the two factors of the TEOSQ and thefive factors of the LAPOPECQ served as dependentvariables.

Results of the MANOVA for goal orientationsindicated a gender main effect (Wilks lambda ¼ .98,F2,2988 ¼ 28.06, po.001; Cohen f ¼ .34). A follow-up univariate F-test showed that, compared to girls,boys were significantly higher in ego orientation(Table 4). There was also a main effect for age

Students’

learning

orientation

Students’

competitive

orientation

Students’

worries

about

mistakes

Outcome

orientation

without

effort

.51 .16 .14 �.02

.15 .38 .29 .27

.61 .20 .19 .06

.23 .16 �.07

.37 .38

.34

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Table 4

Analysis of goal orientation and perceived motivational climate factor scores for gender and for age

Factor F p Boys (n ¼ 1378) Girls (n ¼ 1615)

M SD M SD

Task orientation 5.71 .07 4.27 .67 4.31 .92

Ego orientation 44.62 .01 3.36 .89 3.14 .90

Teacher-initiated learning orientation 3.47 .12 4.06 .68 4.01 .75

Student’s learning orientation .20 .67 4.26 .61 4.27 .64

Student’s competitive orientation 98.47 .001 3.63 .81 3.35 .77

Student’s worries about mistakes 23.49 .001 3.29 .88 3.13 .93

Outcome orientation without effort 60.86 .001 2.81 .94 2.52 .85

Factor F p 9–13 yr (n ¼ 1494) 14–18 yr (n ¼ 1499)

M SD M SD

Task orientation 9.30 .02 4.33 .58 4.27 .58

Ego orientation 7.01 .03 3.29 .87 3.19 .90

Teacher-initiated learning orientation 91.05 .001 4.18 .67 3.93 .75

Student’s learning orientation 24.90 .001 4.31 .62 4.20 .63

Student’s competitive orientation 7.68 .005 3.52 .81 3.44 .77

Student’s worries about mistakes 23.34 .001 3.28 .95 3.12 .87

Outcome orientation without effort 34.95 .001 2.77 .96 2.55 .84

J. Flores et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1441–14491446

(Wilks lambda ¼ .99, F2,2988 ¼ 7.91, po.001; Co-hen f ¼ .22), with younger students scoring higherboth in task and ego orientation, compared to olderstudents (Table 4). No significant gender� ageinteraction was observed (Wilks lambda ¼ 1.00,F2,2988 ¼ .63, po.53).

A gender main effect was detected for perceivedmotivational climate (Wilks lambda ¼ .95,F5,2985 ¼ 28.96, po.001; Cohen f ¼ .31), with scoresfor the three performance-oriented factors signifi-cantly higher in boys compared to girls (Table 4).An age main effect also emerged (Wilkslambda ¼ .96, F2,2985 ¼ 27.74, po.001; Cohenf ¼ .29). Follow-up univariate F-test indicatedthat younger students were significantly higher inboth learning and performance-oriented factors(Table 4). No significant age� gender interactionwas discerned (Wilks lambda ¼ 1.00, F2,2985 ¼ 1.43,po.21).

4. Discussion

The first objective of this research was to providepsychometric evidence of the validity and reliabilityfor the Spanish versions of established measures toassess goal orientation. The results obtained suggestthat the Spanish versions of the TEOSQ adapted tophysical education classes and the LAPOPECQhave satisfactory psychometric properties, confirm-

ing an acceptable fit of the data with the two-factormodel of the TEOSQ and the hierarchical model ofthe LAPOPECQ. These instruments should, thus,be useful to measure goal orientations and percep-tions of motivational climate for Colombian stu-dents attending physical education classes.

Data from the bivariate correlation analysisindicated that task orientation was highly relatedto perception of a learning-oriented motivationalclimate. Alternatively, ego orientation was moreclearly associated with the performance-orientedfactors of the LAPOPECQ. Canonical correlationanalysis supported these results, and confirmed thatstudents who were dispositionally oriented to taskgoals were more likely to perceive their classes asemphasizing learning, while ego orientation waspositively related to factors indicating perception ofa performance-oriented climate and negativelyrelated to perceptions of a learning-oriented climate.Although White, Duda et al. (1998) have reported,using the PMCSQ-2 adapted to physical education,that goal orientations are not significantly asso-ciated with perception of either a task-involving oran ego-involving climate created by the physicaleducation teacher, numerous studies, employingdifferent instruments, have found that the percep-tion of a performance-oriented class was positivelyrelated to student’s scores on ego orientation andrated perceptions of a learning-oriented class were

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positively correlated with scores on the task goalprofile (Goudas & Biddle, 1994; Moreno, 2005;Papaioannou & Theodorakis, 1996). Data from thepresent study, thus, support the predictions of goalperspective theory, and are consistent with researchconducted in other countries.

Although in some studies no gender differences ingoal orientation have been reported among youthsport participants (White, Duda et al., 1998), thereis considerable evidence to suggest that boys andgirls have different achievement motivation patternsin sports settings, with boys generally reportinghigher levels of ego orientation than girls, speciallyat higher levels of competitive involvement (White& Duda, 1994; White, Duda et al., 1998). Similarfindings have been reported in the context ofphysical education classes (Goudas & Biddle,1994; White, Kavussanu et al., 1998). Results forgender differences in the perception of the motiva-tional climate were also aligned with previousinvestigations reporting that boys perceive themotivational climate of the physical education classas ego involving, while girls tend to have more task-involving perceptions of the motivational climate(Papaioannou & Kouli, 1999; White, Kavussanuet al., 1998). The present results may be explainedthrough the importance of the process of socializa-tion, and the possibility that boys, in theirsocialization history, may have received moreacknowledgements for winning and outperformingothers (White, Duda et al., 1998). This is especiallyimportant in Latin American societies, which haveadopted a culture in which men occupy a dominantrole (Williams & Guerrieri, 1999). Because thepresent results are consistent with previous studiesof gender differences in goal orientation andperceived motivational climate, further evidencefor the validity of the adapted instruments isprovided.

When age-group differences in goal orientationand perception of motivational climate were stu-died, it was observed that younger students scoredhigher in task and ego orientation than olderstudents, and scored higher also on the differentscales of the LAPOPECQ. It has been previouslyreported that older Greek physical educationstudents, as a consequence of the greater emphasison learning skills in junior than in senior highschool classes, tend to rate their classes as lesslearning-oriented than do their younger school-mates (Digelidis & Papaioannou, 1999; Papaioan-nou, 1997). A similar effect, together with the

influence of situational cues on dispositional goalorientation, could help to explain why scores inlearning-oriented motivational climate and in taskorientation are reduced with age in our study.Differences in ego orientation and the performance-oriented climate do not coincide with previousliterature reporting that American older students,compared with younger ones, appear to be inclinedmore towards ego orientation and an ego-involvingclimate (Xiang & Lee, 2002) or that perceivedperformance orientation tend to increase with age inGreek students (Papaioannou, 1997). Although thisfinding could support the existence of a socio-cultural influence, motivational features could alsobe exclusive to the sample of study and be mediatedby factors such as a difference between both groupsin extracurricular involvement in physical activity,which is well known to influence perceptions ofcompetence and goal orientation (Cervello, Mor-eno, Alonso, & Iglesias, 2006; Papaioannou, 1997).A limitation is the cross-sectional design of ourstudy. Further research and longitudinal studieswould be necessary to clarify this point.

5. Conclusions

The present sample was markedly dissimilar tothose that have been commonly employed inchildren achievement motivation research, becauseparticipants originated from a developing LatinAmerican country, whereas most previous studieshave involved youth from Western countries.Although this does not rule out the necessity ofmore research to ascertain the generality of theobtained results, the fact remains that the overallpattern of results is consistent with previousresearch conducted in other countries, and supportsthe predictions of the goal perspective theory,indicating that goal orientation and motivationalclimate in physical education was probably notinfluenced by socio-cultural variation.

From a practical perspective, data obtainedindicate that the Spanish versions of the TEOSQand the LAPOPEQ could be useful instruments forphysical education teachers, helping them to identi-fy achievement goal orientation of their studentsand perceptions of the motivational climate in theireducation classes. Our study also confirms theimportance of adopting teaching strategies aimedto create a high learning-oriented climate (Digelidiset al., 2003; Papaioannou & Kouli, 1999) in order todevelop better adaptive goal orientations and

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motivational patterns. Therefore, it would be highlyrecommended to teachers wishing to maximizestudents involvement in physical education classesto enhance their task involvement. This couldrequire intervention plans concerning teachers’education.

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