Movement Satisfaction in Relation to Learning Sport Skills in Mixed Practical Courses at faculty of Physical Education at the University of Jordan

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between movement satisfaction and learning sport skills in the mixed practical courses at Physical Education College at the University of Jordan. Secondary outcome was to examine the nature of these relationships according to gender, sport type, school year and courses type. Movement satisfaction questionnaire was used to evaluate the variables of the study. The results of the statistical analysis revealed that there was a gender differences in favor of females subjects, school year difference's in favor of the first school year, and course differences in favor of the handball course. The results also showed that movement satisfaction was beneficial for enhancing learning. Researchers suggest the need to create classroom participation that favors movement satisfaction environments. In order to provide more inclusive teaching, especially for students with low movement satisfaction score.

Headnote

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between movement satisfaction and learning sport skills in the mixed practical courses at Physical Education College at the University of Jordan. Secondary outcome was to examine the nature of these relationships according to gender, sport type, school year and courses type. 185 subjects (78) males and (107) females (age 20±2) college students in physical education college at the university of Jordan, in two kinds of sport (Individual & team sports) were participated in the study. All the courses were mixed (males & females), subjects were consisted of (35) students from basketball course, (35) students from volleyball course, (35) students from handball course, (35) students from racket games course and (45) students from track and field course. Samples represent different school years (first, second, third and fourth year). Subjects learning scores were measured twice during the second semester, the med-term exam (30) grades and the final-tem exam (30) grades. Subjects went through practical subjective exams only. The researchers didnt count the writing exam which had (20) grade, the total grades score was (60). Movement satisfaction questionnaire (Nelson and Allen. 1970) was used to evaluate the variables of_the study. The results of the statistical analysis revealed that there was a gender differences in favor of females subjects, school year difference's in favor of the first school year, and course differences in favor of the handball course. The results also showed that movement satisfaction was beneficial for enhancing learning. Researchers suggest the need to create classroom participation that favors movement satisfaction enviromnents. In order to provide more inclusive teaching, especially for students with low movement satisfaction score.

Keywords: Movement satisfaction, gender, school year, course type, sport type, learning.

Introduction

Movement satisfaction is an important psychological state that affects performance in sport. It is generally used when referring to one's belief in one's ability to successfully perform a specific behavior or set of behaviors necessary to obtain a certain outcome (Bandura, 1986). In sport, most researchers have considered the relationship between movement satisfaction and physical performance. According to Bandura's (1997) social cognitive theory movement satisfaction influences thoughts and emotional reactions (e.g. goals, worries, attributions) and behaviors (e.g. choice, effort, persistence). In sport, researchers have consistently demonstrated a positive relationship between movement satisfaction beliefs and behavior in terms of performance, effort and persistence (Moritz, et al., 2000). Movement satisfaction Increased beliefs in one's capability to succeed in a given task and enhances skill acquisition (Bandura, 1997).More specifically, learners tend to learn the skills when an individual has high movement satisfaction for a particular task, he will initiate and persist in performing the task more than someone lower in movement satisfaction for the same task. Individuals who have no movement satisfaction for a particular task will avoid it (Hanton et al., 2004).

There are many circumstances in which movement satisfaction can play a role in sport. For example. Brown (2003) stated that athletes need to have confidence in themselves and satisfaction with their sport skills; they can have confidence in their performance when they have high movement satisfaction which effects positively their motivations to perform in their best. Intuitively, sport psychologists have probably known this for years based on their interactions with athletes. It is likely that if an athlete is confident in Iiis ability to use a specific psychological technique, he will use that technique positively. This line of thinking is reflective of one of Bandura's (1997) key contentions regarding the role of movement satisfaction beliefs in human functioning: that "people's level of motivation, affective states, and actions are based more on what they believe than on what is objectively true". If this is true, then if an athlete is confident in Iiis ability to use certain psychological skills, then he will be more likely to use those psychological skills and benefit from them. The relationship between movement satisfaction and learning motor skills lias been of interest to many researchers in the field of sports psychology, the term movement satisfaction refer to a cognitive process by which students make judgments about their capabilities to accomplish a particular task in a sport context (Feltz, 1994; Feltz & Chase, 1998; Moritz et al., 2000).

Specifically, research in physical education domain shows evidence to support a relation between movement satisfaction and motivational processes (Stuntz & Weiss, 2009). Cecchini et al., (2008) Stated that students with a high movement satisfaction are more likely to select challenging tasks, have fun during the learning process, show more self-esteem, use internal criteria to judge success, use more effort for mastery skills and be more persistent when faced with difficulty in sport and in life tends to display more ability in front of the others which enhance learning and develop the best outcomes.(Abed Rabbo, 2006; Khayoun, 2002; Mahjoub, 2000 & Rateb, 2001).

Nevertheless, it has been indicated that these behavioral patterns can be affected by the movement satisfaction the subject has, involving climate that may lead to a high achievement in motivation in those subjects who perceive themselves as having high levels of movement satisfaction which needs for the sport skills to be learned better (Nicholls, 1989; Duda & Balaguer, 2007; Halaweh, 2011). However, there are few studies reported that have attend to the relation between movement satisfaction and learning among physical education students at the university of Jordan, there is a need to explore and understand the benefits of using movement satisfaction in this area of curriculum for physical education students at the university of Jordan. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the movement satisfaction and learning sport skills performance in mixed practical courses among physical education students at the university of Jordan, in two kinds of mixed sport coerces (Individual & team sport coerces).The second purpose is to examine more closely the contribution of gender and the studying school year influences on movement satisfaction and learning sports skills performance among physical education students at the University of Jordan. Gender differences and studying year level differences were expected. On the other hand, it was predicted that the type of mixed sport courses would be linked positively to movement satisfaction.

Method

Participants and Procedure

This study investigates the relationship between movement satisfaction and learning various sport skills in mixed practical courses among physical education students at the university of Jordan, Our study sample consisted of (185) college students in physical education college at the university of Jordan, in two kinds of sport courses (Individual sport courses & team sport courses), all the courses were mixed (males & females), there were (78) males (107) females. There were (35) students from basketball course, (35) students from volleyball course, (35) students from handball course, (35) students from racket games course and (45) students from track and field course. The sample contained students from different school years (first, second, third and fourth year). All participants volunteered to participate in the study. Permission to conduct this research was received from head teachers and from the University of Jordan. The participants were told the purpose of the research, their rights as study participants and asked to sign a consent form. The students learning scores were measured twice during the second semester, they went through practical subjective exams only, the med-term exam (30) grades, and the final-tem exam (30) grades, while the researchers didn t count the writing exam which had (20) grades, the total grades score was out of (60). The instrument for measuring the different variables of movement satisfaction was the movement satisfaction questionnaire which has been devised basically by Nelson and Allen (1970). The subjects completed the movement satisfaction questionnaire which measures the degree of satisfaction as individual has of his or her own movements, each participant took 15-20 minutes to complete and responses to the questionnaire during a practice session. The participants were told to ask for help if confused concerning either instructions or the clarity of particular items. No problems were encountered in completing either of the inventories or understanding the nature of the questions. The students total scores for learning skills and outcomes total scores for movement satisfaction questionnaire were compared and taken as results for this research.

Movement Satisfaction Questionnaire

An attitude scale measures the degree of satisfaction an individual has of his or her own movements, which has been devised basically by Nelson and Allen (1970). The questionnaire consist 50-Items, the rating were made on a Likert five-point scale (strong positive feelings, moderate positive feelings, no feeling, moderate negative feelings, strong negative feelings).The researchers in the current study picked 30-items from Nelson's & Allen's questionnaire, the list of the 30-items was submitted to a jury consisting of ten recognized specialists in the field of physical education in the middle east, who were asked to judge the items concerning their relevancy to and possible adequacy in examining a student's satisfaction with movement. The 30-items scale accepted face validity through the evaluation of the jury, 96 % agreement was reported, which means that the 30-items questionnaire is measuring what it was designed to measure. To assess reliability, the 30-items questionnaire was given to (20) students who took part in a pilot investigation out of the study sample, reliability was measured by a test- retest method over five days between the two distributions of the questionnaire. In addition the internal Item reliability, variation was based on correlation of item responses in relation to the total variance score, the result yielded a 0,93 score.

Results and discussion

Based on the data collected in this study, with due to the consideration to the limitation of the investigations, the results of this study were the following:

To examine the hypothesis that sport kind and gender would be associated with movement satisfaction; a t-test was conducted, t value mentioned (0.34) suggests no significant differences for movement satisfaction according to sport kind, as the related probability value (0.731) was > 0.05 while the t value calculated for gender (6.20) suggests significant differences as the probability value (0.000) was < 0.05 and the difference was in favor of females, as the mean value was (2.72) greater than that for males (2.25).

Researchers related this result to the fact that females usually have more ability to express their thoughts and feelings than males; females had more internal motivations which affected their movement satisfaction level. In this respect, Zaichkowsky (1984) mentioned that females usually show more ability to express internal cues like thoughts, feelings and sensations, while males pay more attention to external cues like somatic movements and environment, both are critical in learning.

The researchers also found that the enjoyment dimension of movement satisfaction was encouraging for the females; this is consistent with previous research of Juan et al (2012) who studied motivation, physical self- concept and differences in physical education between boys and girls, and concluded that boys had higher mean values than girls in all the variables considered, except in task orientation, it is stated that girls generally endorse task orientation and a task-involving motivational climate more strongly than boys.

From the point of view of sport psychology, and more specifically from the goal perspective, it is difficult to find a clear explanation of gender differences. Nevertheless, we could suggest in this case the influence of other social factors which may made the males in this study less of movement satisfaction than females. In fact, as social psychology has proved, we must not forget that individual perceptions are influenced by stereotypes upheld by the social group the person belongs to. (Meece et al., 2006).

Group pressures, could affect the image that boys and girls have of themselves and of each other. In the latter case, the construction of an athletic image for a girl could be seen as inappropriate in certain situations; this finding is coherent with studies that have demonstrated how gender determines student's perception within physical education classes and how it affects task engagement. (Li et al., 2004).

Graham (1995) suggested that what students believe, think and feel effected not only their understanding of subject which being taught, but also the behavior which learned in the class. Whereas, Banadura and Jourden (1991) indicated that an individual s ideas, feelings and behavior are all effected the self efficacy.

Table (3) the f value (2.93) indicates that there are significant differences in the movement satisfaction as the probability value (0.035) was < 0.05. scheffe post hoc test was performed to specify the source of differences; the results are included in the following table.

The differences mentioned in table (4) clarifies that the difference in movement satisfaction was between the first and the fourth years, it was in favor of the first year students as its mean (2.67) was greater than the fourth year (2.30) year.

The researchers relate this result to the various learning experiences between the first and the fourth year students, and to the fact that students in the first year, have no previous experience before, they were excessive rush and exciting to increase their self-experience, they enjoy physical classes which encouraged them to participate effectively, to work hard and make the effort to show their competence, they have been motivated by the excitement and the enjoyment of the learning process, willing to make extra effort and thus possible to generate loco movement satisfaction where it's not exposed to previous experience (halaweh,2011). Studies in physical education domain showed evidence to support a relation between movement satisfaction and motivational processes (Stuntz&Weiss, 2009).In this area, Bandura (1997) mentioned that people's level of motivation, affective states and actions. Cecchini et al (2008) indicated that Students with a high movement satisfaction are more likely to select challenging tasks, have fun during the learning process, show more self- esteem, use internal criteria to judge success, use more effort for mastery skills and be more persistent when faced with a difficulty. Which explains the better scores of movement satisfaction among the first year students. On the other hand, the fourth year students had different learning goals than students in the first year, in this area, Wittrock (1986) mentioned that students afford different meanings to the achievement goals, and provide varying explanations for the success and failure of the learning processes. Locke (1968) first developed goal- setting theory indicated that behaviors are influenced by long- and short- term, important and non-important, easy and difficult goals, all these have influence on self-evaluation, Nicholls (1989) added motivation relates strongly to individual's behavior, as individual will decide how much effort, time and ability to put in, and this will depend on their behavior goal orientations, which will influence on self-evaluation and how they feel satisfy by their movements. According to achievement theory, persons of different goal orientation will respond differently with regard to achievement motivation. Sports psychologists confirmed that perfect sports performance requires a sense of satisfaction which considered one of the most important incentives that drives motivation to the learner in sport skills domain, as good success and achievement in the process of motor learning associated with satisfaction, from which the learner can determines his movement goals and his physical abilities (Aldamd, 2003 & Rateb, 2001).

Table (5) shows the f value (7.39) indicates that there are significant differences in the movement satisfaction according to the course type, as the probability value (0.000) was <0.05. Sheffe post hoc test was performed to specify the source of differences; the results are included in the following table.

The differences mentioned in table (6) clarifies that movement satisfaction was between handball and basketball, volleyball and racket games. The difference was in favor of handball course as its mean (2.87) was greater than the basketball (2.44), volleyball (2.21) and racket games (2.48). Also significant differences appeared between Track and field and volleyball in favor of Track and field course (2.58) mean was greater. The researches relay the high scores for the movement satisfaction among handball students to the fact that it was easy to confuse the student's abilities with handball basic skills, such as walking, running, jumping and so on, because most of these skills are related to general rather than specific movements. However, those skills were learnt, while abilities were innate, this is consistent with Terry (2004) who mentioned that the amount of, and types of abilities that individuals possess are determined genetically, they naturally acquire these abilities as they develop, although these abilities can be improved by practice. It is generally thought that it is the amount and type of abilities that they possess that underpin their proficiency in particular skills. Schmidt (1975) explaining how we developed so many motor programs based on Schema Theory, generalized motor program theory was developed. According to this theory, we learn and store the programs as schémas or sets of generalized rules. This allows us to perform the same skill in a variety of conditions and situations. Moreover, because the rules are generalized, we can adapt when faced with novel situations. Whereas, Keele (1968) defined a motor program as being a set of muscle commands that allow movements to be performed without any peripheral feedback more simple tasks like walking or running we are able to carry out many acts without thinking about what we are doing. Moreover, these skills are reformed smoothly and consistently. In the current study the handball course students did not actually need past experience to perform handball skills, like pick up or throw a ball, or to run three steps holding the ball, all of the necessary information was present in the display. This is what the ecological psychologists call direct perception in the ecological psychologists' theory of perception. (Terry, 2004).

The results of this study also revealed that track and field students had more movement satisfaction than the volleyball students, the researchers relay this result to the differences in the demands of each course skills, this is consistent with Balague (2000) who stated that the integration of a psychological skills training program approach includes a combination of psychological skills training techniques with the specific needs of the athlete, taking into consideration factors such as the specific demands of the sport (technical, tactical, physical, and mental), and the environmental demands of the sport. In track and field, the goal of many skills is to perform some act that is measured solely by a quantitative outcome (halaweh, 2011). Examples of this are activities like running the 100 m, or throwing a javelin, the running of 100 m can be measured in time or by competition against other runners, the javelin can be measured by how far you throw, In such skills it is the outcome that is crucial, not how the students look while performing the skill, It is true that many skilful performers, whose outcome is very good, also demonstrate good form, but a lack of style is acceptable for a skill in which the measurement is an outcome when performing, while performing would be unsuitable for a skill that is subjectively measured on the basis of its aesthetic appeal, such qualitative skills are found in volleyball (Cisar, 2005). This is reflected by the fact that simple skills are said to be those which require little in the way of information processing demands of skills that require little in the nature of decision making compared with those that require much (Keith,2007). Where little information processing is required, technique is the key factor, while complex skills in volleyball involve much information processing, where decision making is important, it is the choice of which technique to use in any given situation that is the major issue, furthermore, the change in the environment in volleyball means that every time the skill is performed, the performer must modify his technique to achieve the same goal, or even use a different technique to achieve the goal, beside, there must be interaction and coordination between individuals in order to try to achieve team goals, when the team can touch the ball three times only on its side of the net and the ability of the team to devise new strategies, tactics and skills has been crucial for success at the games, while track and field, takes place in the same or very similar environments, therefore the same technique can be used over and over again which will make the players feel satisfy by their movements (Masters, 2000).

Table (7) indicates the values of correlation coefficients between the learning score in each course and movement satisfaction. The value was (0.773) for basketball, (0.957) for volleyball, (0.711) for handball, (0.752) for racket games, (0.801) for track and field and (0.822) for overall movement satisfaction. All the mentioned values reflects a strong relationship between the learning scores and movement satisfaction as all these values were > 0.7 and that the related probabilities were < 0.05 suggesting the statistical significance of these relations. The results showed that students with high movement satisfaction learned and improved their performance, more than those with lower movement satisfaction, this is consistent with Hanton et al (2004) who mentioned that when an individual has high movement satisfaction he tends to initiate and persist in performing the task more than an individual whose lower in movement satisfaction for the same task, individuals who have no movement satisfaction for a particular task will avoid it. Psychology of education focuses on intrinsic motivation and autonomous learning in order to achieve the desire sort of outcome (Pintrich,1999 & Cheng,2001), Whereas, Chen (1996) and Karoly (1993) mentioned that an important goal of teaching should be to lead the students to spontaneous psychological activity and active participation, so they can actively explore and think, activate their own cognition, behaviors, and motivations, and further more construct their own knowledge. Movement satisfaction knowledge are important to enable individuals to use skill and knowledge construction processes, this has arguably become an essential competence in an ever changing society, Ommundsen et al (2005) stated that benefits acquired through sports satisfaction could include the sense of living a satisfying life, the recognition of one's strengths, and a contribution to society Whereas, looking at social development through sports participation. For physical education instructors, the priority of curriculum reform is to meet the society's needs, and also implement effective intervention strategies, in a way that makes learning brings together the learners will and skill. (Halaweh, 2011).

Conclusions

The results of this study showed that the concept of movement satisfaction demonstrated a great impact of the students in mixed practical courses at faculty of physical education, identified their abilities and the relationship between their experience learning, and the outcomes they achieve.

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Appendix

(ProQuest: Appendix omitted.)