The Study Of The Self-determination Theory On The Amotivation Mechanism Of High School Students' Physical Education

The self-determination theory was put forward by American psychologist Deci and Ryan (1985, 1991, 1996). It is a theory of the process of man's self-determination behavior. This theory , based on the social cognitive theory, drive theory and achievement motivation theory, specifies the three basic needs (autonomy, competence, relatedness) which determine human behavior, and holds that self-determination is the individual's free choice of the behavior on the basis of the full understanding of individual need and environmental message. In the past ten years, the self-determination theory has come to be a relative consummate theoretical system on human motivation and personality and been widely used in the fields of management, education and consultation. Motivation has been one of the most cultivated in the fields of sport and exercise psychology, however, the research on the amotivation has not drawn people's attention. Therefore, based on self-determination theory, this study is intended to analyze the high school student's motivation of studying physical education and carry on a further study of the amotivation according to Ntoumanis' interview. Then it investigates individual objective direction, need and situation by experimental design. The study includes the following sections:The first part mainly states the aim, significance, design, visualization and some characteristics of research methodology of the study in the whole.The second part is the theoretical background. The author reviewed the theoretical background of the self-determination theory, hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, analyzed by detail the self-determination theory in current research situation of exercising psychology and reasoned the problems.The third part explores the causes and display of the amotivation and presents the questionnaire firstly. Then investigated the 390 high school students of Senior Grade One and Grade Two from civic, provincial and national level by providing questionnaires, analyzed the rule of high school students' study motivation and explored further the reason and manifestation of amotivation. The results show that (1) the number of high school students' intrinsic motivation of studying physical education and external regulation is obviously more than the number of identified regulation but the number of the students who are amotivation is smaller than that of the students' intrinsic motivation of studying physical education and external regulation; (2) there is a remarkable sexual difference of intrinsic motivation and external regulation among high school students, there exists a distinct difference between the national level and civic level in identified regulation, however, sex difference has a larger effect comparing to grade difference; (3) helplessness is the reason of amotivation of studying physical education; (4) the satisfaction of lower need is one of the reasons of amotivation of studying physical education; (5) social evaluation concerns which includes competition concerns and body image concerns is the reason of amotivation of studying physical education; (6) amotivative students have more body image concerns than others, and this concerns has sex difference obviously, male students pay close attention to equipments more than female students, but female students pay close attention to evaluation its come from male students; (7) teaching form deviance is one of the main reasons of amotivation of study; (8) exercise under bad weather is the reason of amotivation; (9) a large proportion of the students like physical education, but the students who amotivation will try to escape from physical movement in various ways; (10) the students who amotivation will behave with less devotion, usually take the action of destruction of or show the passive attitude; (11) a majority of the students who amotivation are willing to take part in the extra-curricular activities.The fourth part is experimental study. First, the new physical motivation model is put forward according to the similarity of self-determination theory and goal orientation theory. Two experimental classes are randomly chosen. The task orientation and ego orientation climate is created for 8- week-experiment. By comparing the two climate of teaching, from the point of situational and individual, the model was tested by adopting goal orientation and self-determination theory to study further amotivation in physical study. The aim was to discover the way to improve students' physical study by further use of goal orientation and self-determination theory and find out the mechanism for amotivation. The results indicate that (1) in physical education teaching, creating task mastery climate will improve students' inner mechanism of physical study and the decrease of amotivation; (2) the ego display climate in physical teaching will decrease students' motivation; (3) the task mastery climate in physical education will help students become task orientation; (4) autonomy, relatedness and competence are the mediate variable which influence physical study motivation level; (5) the effective process of physical study interests and that of the efforts are basically the same with the effective process of motivation, autonomy, relatedness and competence are the direct path which influence physical study interests and efforts, but task mastery climate can contribute to forming the physical study interests and efforts.To sum up, task mastery climate can increase students' motivation.Second, multiple-project and choice-project teaching are the commonly adopted teaching method in current middle school teaching. In addition, research has proved that motivation climate as situational variant has direct or indirect effects on contribution motivation. Nevertheless, there is a positive correlation between task mastery climate and movement participation. This study aims that, by level model, the combination of individual and situation will have an effect on motivation. In physical teaching creat task mastery climate and an experimental research was conducted on the block class and basketball class for 12 weeks to test under the circumstance of task mastery climate, the influence of project difference and three needs (autonomy, relatedness and competence) on motivation. The research will try to find out the mechanism influencing amotivation. The results show that (1) in physical teaching, task mastery climate will help students to improve the motivation of their physical study; (2) project has no significant effects on the motivation of physical study; (3) the satisfaction of competence needs has played a more important role in autonomous study environment; (4) autonomy, relatedness and competence are the mediate variable which influence physical study motivation level, three of which are indispensable and can joint together to improve physical study motivation, arouse students' interests and efforts; (5) the students who have high-relatedness will improve their amotivation; (6) the joint of high-relatedness, high-autonomy and high-competence can improve students'physical study efforts.The fifth part gives a summary of the whole research results. It discusses the existing problems in the research and puts forward some presuppositions and prospects for the reform of physical education system.