Browsing by Author "Tähtinen, Emmi"

Objectives This study aimed to examine the motivation of 8th and 9th graders' towards school and sport in a sports oriented class. It also developed a scale that is reliable when used among Finnish young athletes based on SAMSAQ-scale (Gaston-Gayles, 2005). Previous studies have shown that even Finnish young top athletes don't move enough to succeed at the international level. Started in 1990s, the sports oriented classes try to support young athletes to combine studies and sports because the age of 14–15 is crucial for the future plans. This study examined is the current system an optimal solution to support both studies and active sports. It also examined the structure of motivation, how motivated young students are in the different parts of motivation and how the different backgrounds are related to students' motivation. Methods The study was a quantitative one. Material was collected in November-December 2011 from the 8th and 9th graders in sports oriented classes. 221 young students from Helsinki answered to the questionnaire which included the Motivation scale and some background questions. The answers were analyzed by using PASW Statistics 18. Analysis methods used included correlations, Factor Analysis, t-tests and Analysis of Variance. Results and conclusions The scale used in this study didn't work the way presumed and some of the variables had to be removed. The fourth factor, which didn't exist in the original scale, was created. The motivation scale needs to be developed and researched more. Students in sports oriented classes were highly motivated towards sports, towards studies the motivation was little lower. Motivation towards athletic career and competition was clearly lower. Gender, the amount of training and competition were related to part of the students' motivation. Studying in sports oriented class seems to support especially athletes of team sports. Combining the practicing of one sport, other exercises and studies is a complex question. All of the sports oriented classes are doing important job finding an optimal solutions for that.