Development of a questionnaire to measure achievement orientations in physical education

Drawing from the work of Ames (1992) on classroom motivational climate, a questionnaire was developed to measure students' perceptions of achievement orientations in physical education. Exploratory factor analytic results revealed a five-factor solution with good internal consistency. Results from confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the two factors were first-order factors of a second higher-order factor, Learning, and the remaining three factors were subfactors of a second higher-order factor, Performance. Further evidence of construct validity was shown in that students' intrinsic motivation and positive attitudes toward the lesson were positively related to the learning-oriented scales and unrelated to performance-oriented scales. Finally, the questionnaire discriminated classes differing in motivational climate. The results are discussed in terms of the psychometric properties of the questionnaire.