Psychological profiles of elite school sports players in Singapore

Objectives. Sport has become such a powerful global phenomenon that a country like Singapore has set its sights on becoming one of the top ten sporting nations in Asia. A full ‘Sport School’ will commence in 2004 to achieve these aims and to further entice the commitment of potential young stars, a significant reward system has been created. This study examined the motivational types, achievement goals and beliefs about various aspects of sport in a Singapore secondary school that classified students into sportand non-sport streams. Method. This study cluster analysed the profile of motivational types and achievement goals in 121 Grade 9 pupils (n 1⁄4 52 sport stream, n 1⁄4 69 non-sport stream) aged between 14 and 15 yrs (M 1⁄4 14:18 yr, SD 1⁄4 0:48) and examined the differences in their beliefs about the purposes of sport. Results. Results revealed three-distinct clusters with 33% of the sample with an ‘amotivated’ profile, 48% in a ‘highly motivated’ cluster and 19% in a ‘high task-mastery’ cluster. These three clusters differed significantly in their beliefs about the purposes of sport. Also, ‘amotivated’ students were less likely to endorse ‘mastery and physically active lifestyle’ and ‘being a good citizen’ as purposes of sport compared to the other two clusters (both Ps < 0:05). The main difference between the ‘highly motivated’ and ‘high task-mastery’ clusters was that the former were more likely to endorse ‘gaining social status’ as one of the main purposes of sport (P < 0:05). # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.