On the interpersonal context of adolescents' sport motivation

Objectives: To gain a better understanding of how adolescent athletes make sense of the interpersonal context and its motivational influence in sport. A second purpose was to develop a model explaining the influence of the interpersonal context on the sport motivation of the participants in this study. Design: Qualitative cross-case study. Methods: Twelve adolescents (ages 13-17) involved in competitive sport, participated in 24 in-depth semi-structured interviews. Results: Qualitative analyses revealed that other individuals played five major roles on the sport motivation of the participants in this study: (a) providers of support, (b) sources of pressure and control, (c) sources of competence-relevant information, (d) agents of socialization of achievement orientations, and (e) models to emulate. Further, athletes saw a fairly large number of individuals, besides parents and coaches, as involved in playing these roles. Conclusions: Results from this study extend the literature by providing insights into how adolescents make sense of and integrate different motivational influences from the interpersonal context relative to their sport practice.