Goal Setting in Competitive Sport: An Exploratory Investigation of Practices of Collegiate Athletes

The purpose of the present investigation was to explore athletes’ responses regarding the frequency, effectiveness, and importance of different types of goals to enhance their performance. Subjects ( N = 678) were collegiate athletes at three NCAA Division I schools from different regions of the United States. Each athlete completed an extensive questionnaire detailing his or her perceptions regarding the use and effectiveness of a number of different goal-setting strategies. Descriptive results revealed that virtually all athletes practiced some type of goal setting to help enhance performance and that they found their goals to be moderately to highly effective. Athletes also reported that improving overall performance, winning, and having fun were their three most important goals. Many significant differences were found when comparing groups. For example, although females generally set more performance goals than males, males set more outcome goals than females. Future directions for research are offered including studying developmental differences and barriers/facilitators to achieving goals.