Importance of Physical Education: Motivation and Motivational Climate

The objective of this research was to study the predictive power of motivation and motivational climate with regard to the importance and usefulness awarded to Physical Education (PE). The sample consisted of 1298 Spanish students (626 males = 48.2%; 672 females = 51.8%) secondary schools students from provinces of Almeria, Granada and Málaga participated. The age range was between 12 and 19 years (M = 15. 13) (SD=1.43), with the median age for boys being 15.26 (SD=1.42) and that of girls 15.01 (SD = 1.43) years. We used a questionnaire composed of Sports Motivation Scale, Learning and Performance Orientations in Physical Education Classes Questionnaire and Importance of PE. A stepwise multiple regression analysis was conducted with SPSS v.17.0. The results of this work show the importance of intrinsic motivation for both boys and girls as a predicting variable for greater importance and usefulness being ascribed to PE, while a greater number of variables have an effect among girls.