Motivation & Sport (DP IB Psychology): Revision Note

Here is an example of a Paper 3 source and a 6-mark SAQ using motivation (HL extension) in the Human Relationships context:

Source 3

Intrinsic motivation refers to any behaviour that comes from an internal source and which has a specific, non-reward-based goal. The inherent satisfaction that comes from achieving a goal is enough for people who are intrinsically motivated; they see activities, tasks or projects as an opportunity to learn, to explore and to enjoy the process.

The following study by Tauer & Harackiewicz (2004) investigates the ideas set out above:

Aim: To investigate the effects of cooperation and competition on intrinsic motivation and performance in sport

Participants:

• 36 boys from grades 7-9 (mean age 12 years) 

• The boys were attending a basketball day camp in the USA

Procedure:

• The researchers used a matched pairs design according to their ability in basketball

• Each participant had been pre-tested on their ability to throw and score baskets

• There were three conditions of the independent variable:

  • The pure cooperation condition: the paired participants’ pre-test scores were combined and they were told that that they had to beat this score by one point by working together

  • The pure competition condition: this was a straightforward case where one boy was pitted against the other to see who could score the most baskets

  • The intergroup competition condition: one pair of boys was put in competition against another pair of boys so that the pairs had to work together to win against another pair

• The dependent variable was:

  • the number of free throws each participant made

  • their responses to a questionnaire about how much they had enjoyed the activity (from 1 – 10 with 10 indicating most enjoyment).

Results:

• The intergroup competition condition resulted in the highest levels of task performance and self-reported task enjoyment

• There was no real difference in performance and enjoyment found between pure cooperation and pure competition

Conclusion: Cooperation and competition combined appears to result in optimum performance and intrinsic motivation for the task

Q3: To what extent are the findings in source 3 transferable to other populations or contexts?

[6 marks]

Worked example:

The findings are not easy to generalise: a sample of 36 boys in grades 7-9 from the USA is a biased and limited sample. For a start, this is a small sample size, which means that any quantitative data will lack statistical power, making it difficult to show that there is a significant effect of cooperation/competition on intrinsic motivation. The external validity of the sample is low, as the boys all attended the same day-long basketball camp, which suggests that they were all from the same geographical area.

The focus of the research, however, draws from issues that are likely to affect children who engage in competitive sport (competition is particularly important to individualistic cultures such as the USA). To this extent the findings are transferable to other contexts in which children take part in competitive sport and may be affected by intrinsic motivation. The findings are gender-biased, as they cannot be generalised to girls, as well as culture-biased, as they do not represent other cultures (people from other countries and also from other states/counties of the USA).

Guidance

• The command term “To what extent” requires you to express a view/judgement on the merit, validity, or success of an argument or concept, supported by relevant evidence

• Points made about transferability could include:

  • How easily the findings can be transferred/generalised to other populations or situations/contexts

  • How easily understood or relatable the concepts, ideas and experiences covered in the data are to most people

  • How relevant the research appears to a modern audience/population

  • How well the researcher has explained their use of materials, procedure, method, data analysis, etc.