Defining Motivation
Motivation can be defined as the direction and intensity of one's effort. The direction of effort refers to whether an individual seeks out, approaches, or is attracted to certain situations.
Intensity of effort refers to how much effort a person puts forth in a particular situation. Put more succinctly, motivation is concerned with arousal, direction and persistence of x-c skiers during the training and competition.
What Motivational Factors Differentiate Olympic Athletes from the Recreational Athletes?
Motivation of x-c skiers is influenced by both, situational and personal factors. The key for enhancing motivation in athletes is not to focus only attention only on the situation at hand or only on personal factors but to consider the interaction of these factors.
Both, recreational athletes and top level x-c skiers cite the following reasons as major motives for participation in their choice of activity:
- Improving skills
- Having fun Being with friend
- Experiencing thrill and excitement
- Achieving success
- Developing fitness
It seems that both, recreational and highly competitive athletes value the skill improvement and development of fitness (personal factors). The major differences in motivational factors appears to be in "having fun" and "achieving success" categories.
- Recreational athletes value highly the joy, pleasure, happiness (having fun), and social experience - affiliation (being with friend)
- Elite X-C skiers seem to be more motivated to practice and race by ascetic experiences, such as winning, personal best and qualifying for national and international meets.
Motives of Male and Female Runners
Understanding while some people to choose train and compete, while others do not would of great practical value. Knowing the differences and similarities of motives across the lifespan, psycho-social factors, demographics and gender may help us to design motivational strategies positively effecting both direction, intensity and perseverance of athletes effort during the pre-Olympic preparation stage and during the competition also. While no information is available to compare motives of males and females X-C skiers it may be of interest to present date obtained on marathon runners.
The motivation of runners were assessed using following ten (10) motives:
- afterglow -- the elevated mood and feeling of relaxation after running
- fitness -- cardiovascular and general physical fitness
- centering -- space to be alone and experience self
- challenge -- to challenge or improve self
- competition -- to measure against others
- fame and fortune -- to make money or to win fame
- feeling good -- how one feels good during a run
- identity -- the definition of self as a runner
- weight control -- to be slim
- social -- to make new friends and/or maintain old friendships
For both sexes, the main motive for running was to challenge oneself. It was clear that competition was significantly higher in men that women. Running for fitness was more important for men, who ranked it second, than for women, who ranked it fifth. Women scored "afterglow" and "weight control (slim)" significantly higher than men.
- Develop questions and a ranking scale from 1-7 for the Motive Categories listed above.
- Find out your motivational profile using the assessment questionnaire you developed. Identify one successful endurance athlete in your communitypreferably XC skier and plot their profile next to yours.
- Discuss the similarities and differences between individual parameters.
- Which of your motives are stronger: personal or situational?
