Motivational sphere of personality of athl;etes practicing shooting

Introduction

As admitted by many sports psychologists, motivational sphere of an athlete is a nucleus of his personality, a set of internal incentive forces to action [2-5]. The analysis of special literature on psychology of sports shows, that there is a certain gap in theoretical and experimental development of questions of motivation in sports activity. There is a number of theoretical works, in which the most general problems of motives and motivation of human ability to live are considered. [2,3] Various most general empirical classifications of motives of sports activity are represented in works of A.Ts. Puni, P.A.Rudik, V.Goshek, M.Vanek. Proceeding from the analysis of researches on motivation, the hypothesis was formulated. Motivation and the concrete motives act not only in a role of factors, determining behaviour and activity of athletes, but also in a role of reserved opportunities, which allow to enhance or to weaken the activity, to raise or to reduce the capacity for work, to brake or to stimulate an energy potential of a competing athlete or a sports team.

Methods

40 athletes specialising in shooting participated in the research. The following methods of study of motivation were applied: 1) test of an orientation of the athlete’s personality; 2) scale of a level of claims and purposes developed by G.E. Leevik; 3) "Motivation of achievement" (H. Hekhausen).

Results

As a result of an experimental research, primarily, nine groups of motives were revealed. 1. Motive of friendly or group solidarity. 2. Motive of imitation. 3. Motive of self-actualisation. 4. Motive of self-perfection. 5. Motive of intercourse. 6. Motive of obligation. 7. Motive of intragroup rivalry. 8. Motives of sports achievements. 9. Metasports motives. The carried out correlation analysis of the empirical data has allowed to group up motives depending on the level of skill of athletes. In each subgroup one dominant at the moment motive was singled out. However other motives did not lose their importance for the given group of athletes. Secondly, the level of motivation was defined by the following group of parameters: level of claim, level of purposes, orientation on achievement of success and avoiding of failure, orientation of assignment of success (by himself, by the coach or by the conditions of competition). Reliable and significant distinctions of these parameters depending on the level of skill of athletes were obtained.

Discussion/Conclusions

The motive represents in itself the personality mechanism of determination of working activity. Motivational sphere represents the multilevel and hierarchically organized formation of athlete’s personality, where at a certain level of skill one of the motives dominates. It is necessary to consider the formation of motives and their actualisation in conditions of concrete competitions as an effective way for derivation of additional, frequently latent reserves of the subject of sports activity. During the formation of the personality of an athlete, motives’ development passes four phases: initial, development, phase of stabilisation or sports skill and phase of transformation of motivational sphere of an athlete. It is necessary to consider the level of development of motives, their completeness, stability or variability, intensity and tension as the factor of reliability (actually reserve factor), ensuring athlete’s demonstration of his increased opportunities in various changing conditions of sports activity.

References

[1]. G.E. Leevik. Research of personality features of athletes by method of modelling. L., 1981
[2]. Ilyin E.P. Motivation and motives. St.Pet, 2000
[3]. Leontyev A.N.. Needs, motives and emotions. M., 1971.
[4]. Psychology. A textbook for students of the Institutes of physical education. M., 1987.
[5]. Volp A. " Motivation in Training und wettkampf, Lewstungssport, 1985, ╧4.