Goal orientation and well-being in college athletes: The importance of athletic social connectedness

ABSTRACT

The present study examined the ability of an interpersonal construct called athletic connectedness to mediate the relationship between task and ego goal orientations and well-being. We operationalised athletic social connectedness as a sense of social belonging and sense of connection with teammates. We hypothesised that athletic social connectedness would be positively associated with task goals, negatively associated with ego goals, and would at least partially mediate the relationship between achievement goals and well-being. We administered questionnaires to female (N = 106; mean age = 20.47, SD = 1.12) and male (N = 100; mean age = 20.95, SD = 1.21) NCAA Division III college athletes. We tested our hypothesised model using structural equation modelling, which included testing a measurement model that specified four latent variables and then comparing the estimates generated by our hypothesised model with our data. We also tested three alternative models and found our hypothesised model to fit best. As predicted, there were significant indirect effects of task and ego motivation on well-being through athletic connectedness, demonstrating formal evidence of mediation. The r² coefficient indicated that the model explained 30% of the variance in well-being, a moderate effect size (Cohen, 1988). Discussion focuses on the importance of considering interpersonal constructs as a way to improve our understanding of relationship between task and ego goal orientations to well-being in athletes.

KEYWORDS:

• Task motivation
• ego motivation
• social connectedness
• quiet ego
• well-being

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ The factor loadings for three indicators of task motivation (scale items randomly divided into three indicators) were .89, .79, and .69; for ego motivation (also randomly divided into three indicators) were .87, .58, .77; for well-being (LOT .72, CESD .66, self-esteem .77); for athletic social connectedness (friend support .82, quiet ego items .56).

² We tested three alternative models to examine our assumption about the order in which the variables appeared in the model. None of these alternative models fit the data as well as Model Two, leaving us to conclude that our assumptions about variable order were reasonable. The first model placed well-being as antecedent to goal orientations and athletic social connectedness, , P < .001, χ²:df = 1.88; CFI = .94, NNFI = .92, RMSEA = .067, 90% CI .045–.087; but the average residuals and off-diagonal absolute residuals increased (from .04 to .128, .048 to .151, respectively). The second alternative model posited that well-being would mediate the relationship between athletic social connectedness and task and ego motivation, , P < .001, χ²:df = 1.96; CFI = .94, NNFI = .92, RMSEA = .07, 90% CI .048–.090; difference test = 16.35, P < .0001. The third alternative model posited that athletic social connectedness would predict task and ego motivation, , P < .000, χ²:df = 2.12; CFI = .93, NNFI = .90, RMSEA = .08, 90% CI .054–.095.