Motivation and basic psychological needs in basketball initiation

Abstract

Motivation is considered an important factor for the success and maintenance of the practice in any sport. The objective of the study was to correlate themotivation and basic psychological needs of young basketball athletes who were in the initiation phase of sport. The research involved 53 athletes from thecity of Maringá - Paraná - Brazil, with an average age of 13.25 years (PD 2.54 years). The instruments used in the research were the sport motivation scaleand the exercise basic psychological needs questionnaire. The Spearman test was used for data analysis, assuming a significance level of 95 % ( p<0.05 ). Theresults showed that the dimensions of basic psychological needs are not uniformly correlated with the dimensions of motivation. The greatest correlation foundwas between competition and extrinsic motivation introjection, which shows that the internal pressures of the athlete himself and the fear of constraint makethe practitioner develop greater competence to perform the proposed activities. Furthermore, the relationship dimension was only linked to aspects related toextrinsic motivation, where good relationships favor knowledge, testing and the search for pleasure in the sport. Finally, autonomy showed a moderaterelationship with intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.