Goal Perspectives, Reasons for Being Disciplined, and Self-Reported Discipline in Physical Education Lessons

This study examined the relationship among goal orientations, perceived motivation climate, self-reported discipline, reasons for discipline, and perceived teacher’s strategies to sustain discipline in physical education lessons. Six hundred and seventy-four students responded on questionnaires assessing the aforementioned variables. Task orientation was positively associated with self-determined reasons for discipline. The perception of a task-involving climate was positively related to perceptions of teaching strategies promoting reasons for discipline determined by the students. Task-involvement and self-determined reasons for being disciplined corresponded to students’ reported discipline in the lesson. On the contrary, the perception of an ego-involving climate was linked with perceived teaching strategies promoting an external locus of causality in the lesson. The results imply that teachers who try to strengthen the task orientation of students and help them adopt more self-determined reasons for being disciplined will have more orderly classes.