Abstract
People sport for various reasons and often because of the many positive associations that come with it, making sporting a part of our lifestyles. Some may wonder why they enjoy doing sports and it’s not often people sit down and anaylise what kinds of motivators that drive them to practise sports. To measure whether internal or external factors give a stronger influence in motivating people to practise sport, 36 university students in SIM completed the Sport Motivation Scale (SMS-28) questionnaires by rating 28 items in a scale from one to seven. As hypothesised, participants scored higher mean values (M = 22.67, 21.61 & 21.58) under the intrinsic (internal) motivation category. The results suggest that university students are more
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There are three levels in extrinsic motivation that have also been discussed by Deci and White (as cited in Taylor and Wilson, 2005). External regulation is the first level that describes behaviour influenced by external means such as rewards, constraints or punishments. The second level of extrinsic motivation is introjection, which is when a person internalised the external source of motivation and feel a need to control his behaviour due to fear of embarrassment and guilt. Identification is the third level of extrinsic motivation, where the participant sees a certain behaviour as important, hence perform it as if it’s self-determined.
Amotivation is simply described as a lack of motivation, be it internal or external motivation. Individuals feel helpless and can no longer find good reasons to continue taking part in the activity. This theory may be useful in determine the lack of persistence in sport (Vallerand, 1997, as cited in Tenenbaum, Eklund & Kamata, 2012).
Judging by the explanations of the various types of motivations discussed above, university students would be more intrinsically motivated to practise their sports as more positive feelings are generated rather than having to be pressured by the external forces. Hence to test this hypothesis, a study was conducted on 36 university students to measure their motivation
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Interest as defined by Hidi (2000) is a psychological state with intensive focus, elevated persistence and high involvement. This explains why university students who are more intrinsically motivated tend to persist in their sports and have great enjoyment while practising. Hidi (2000) went on to say that even though a lot of effort is required in order to persist in doing things, when interest is high, activities can be perceived as rather effordless. This again reinforced the idea that university students who find joy in practising sports and continue staying in the activity are more intrinsically motivated because they feel it’s