Measurement of goal perspectives in the physical domain

Over the past 10 years, sport research steeped in social cognitive models of motivation that emphasized the significance of personal goals has burgeoned. Central to this growth has been the development of sport-related measures to assess the constructs critical to such theoretical frameworks. In the first part of this chapter, the major tenets of the goal perspective approach to motivation are provided and differences as well as commonalities between the positions taken by major achievement goal theories are delineated. To foster clarity in the central concepts, the distinctions between the conceptual definitions of dispositional, situational, and state goal perspectives are presented. The chapter will then review the psychometric characteristics and conceptual underpinnings of measures of dispositional goal orientations and perceptions of situationally induced task and ego goal perspectives in the sport domain. Assessments of achievement goals as applied to the context of physical education will also be critically analyzed. We conclude with suggestions for future work concerning the measurement of goal perspectives and, in particular, highlight recent efforts to assess task and ego goal states in the physical domain.