MOTIVATION AND SPORT DROPOUT: A PROSPECTIVE STUDY FROM SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY

Statement of problem: This paper aimed to analyse the predictive relationships between motivation and dropout. Motivations considered, ordered from more to less self-determined were: intrinsic motivation (IM) toward knowledge, MI toward accomplishment, and MI toward stimulation, extrinsic motivation (EM) of identified regulation, EM of introjected regulation, EM of external regulation and Amotivation. Also was considered the Self-Determination Index (SDI), calculated as a function of the different motivations. Method: A prospective study was performed. We measured motivation towards competitive sport and after 19 months we measured the persistence or not, in the competitive sport practice. The sample consisted of 857 athletes aged 11-19. Results: A Multivariate Analysis of Variance was performed with SPSS 15.0. Conclusion: The study showed the great importance of IM to predict persistence or dropout. Moreover, the SDI showed its utility to simplify the analysis of the relationship between self-determined motivation and persistence-dropout.