Effekte des "Team Building Through Physical Challenges" Ansatzes auf das Selbstkonzept, die Sportmotivation und die Erfüllung psychologischer Basisbedürfnisse bei Schülern des obligatorischen Sportunterrichts der Sekundarstufe I

Background. Sports instructors always strive to positively influence personality development in students. The "Team Building Through Physical Challenges" approach by Glover and Midura (TBPC; 1992) account for the three fundamental psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Satisfying these needs is a necessity to develop intrinsic motivation and situational interest. – as claimed by Deci and Ryan’s (1985, 2000) Self-Determination Theory.
Methods. 360 Grade 7 students participated in this quasi-experimental study. Cohorts were randomly assigned to the treatment group (12 cohorts, 240 students) and the control group (9 cohorts, 120 students). The treatment group (TG) participated in a TBPC-program for a duration of 14 weeks with 10 to 12 performances; the control group (CG) continued taking part in scheduled physical education according to the school curriculum. At the beginning and at the end of the intervention, the TG and CG completed a questionnaire regarding out-of-school sports activities, motivation in sports, self-perception in physical education, and self-conception.
Results. The TBPC-program which consisted of 2 games, 3 target-oriented and 7 task-oriented exercises, revealed no significant effect between the CG and TG across 14 weeks. There was no significant improvement between the TG and the CG in the subscales of the motivation modes, the psychological basic needs, and the self-conception.
Conclusion. Potential causes for these results could lie in too small a number of implementations and too little average exercises and game time of only 15 minutes. Further, the questionnaire of six pages was probably too long for teenagers 13 years of age and the phrasing of items might have been too complex for students with poor German skills.