Most of the time kids like to come to the gym for physical education. They come knowing that they are going to get a break from the classroom routine. There are some kids, however, who don’t like to come to physical education. There are some kids who don’t want to do whatever the gym coach has planned for them to do that day. I want to try and find a scheme that works in the gym that will appeal to all of the kids who come to PE. I found some research that shows some of the things that have an effect on motivation in the gym.
Motivation is something that has to be started inside of people. Good motivators can get people to do things that they might not want to do. Good motivators can also get people to try tasks that they think are impossible.
Most experts agree that intrinsic motivation is better than extrinsic motivation. If the kids in gym are intrinsically motivated, they want to exercise to be healthy. If the kids are extrinsically motivated, they want some kind of award. This being said, if the kids are intrinsically motivated, it would be cheaper for the teacher as well. The textbook says that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are not necessarily mutually exclusive; often learners are simultaneously both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated. (Ormrod 453)
One of the theories about motivation is that people do things in order to keep a stable lifestyle. Other theorists think that people want to feel like they are able to be successful.
Another theory about motivation is that people need to feel like they are doing things that relate them to other people.
Trait theorists focus not on needs common to everyone but rather on individual differences that exist in such motives as the need for affiliation, the need for approval, and the need for achievement. (Ormrod 453) Some theorists argue that the motivation might come from the environment instead.
The way that a person feels about a task is called the affect. Affect influences motivation; people choose their goals in part based on how they think they will feel if they achieve or don’t achieve those goals. (Ormrod 453) Anxiety is a type of affect. Anxiety in physical education may come from different sources. One source of anxiety in physical education might be the type of clothes that the kids are wearing to gym.

In one study that I found, the researchers surveyed a group of kids and their parents to see if clothing can be a motivation for exercise. The researchers gave a survey to 30 children and their parents. The children were taking part in a weigh-management exercise program at a clinic.
One of the questions asked of the parents and their kids was if they had any problems with the fit of their clothes. Only 40% answered that the fit of their clothes caused a problem.
Most of the problems came from the shirts or pants being too long. The shirts were too tight in the bust and arms. The pants were too tight in the waist and thigh area. Since the pants were too long, it caused the seat to be baggy. It seems that the manufacturers make the clothing for the kids that are growing taller and not for the kids that are gaining weight in certain areas.
Someone in the near future is going to take advantage of this new phenomenon if they haven’t already.
The next question asked what kind of clothes would they wear that would help in exercising. Most kids and parents answered that they would rather wear a t-shirt and sweatpants. Less than half chose shorts. I am wondering if this is because some of the kids are embarrassed about how their legs look.
Then the kids and parents were asked about how their clothes made them feel. Ease of movement, exercising longer, and/or feeling like exercising was the focus of the next question.
61% of the kids and parents agreed that the exercise clothing available to be purchased at stores was conducive to movement. Only 35% of the responders answered yes to the clothes helping them exercise longer or helping them to feeling like exercising. Some of the kids’ complaints were that they didn’t like to sweat. I think that when they started to sweat, they didn’t want to exercise for very much longer after that. The material that most exercise clothes are made out of absorbs the sweat and gets heavier. The new wicking materials that the manufacturers are using for workout clothes moves sweat away from the body so it can evaporate quicker. One problem with this new material is that it does not stretch as much as the knits and that brings up the problem about fit that the kids were having. Another problem is that the new wicking material is more expensive than other materials so it might not be an option for people on a budget.
The fourth question asked the participants in the survey if the clothing they wore could influence them or their kids to exercise more. Over half of the answers were in favor of getting new types of clothing. Most of them wanted clothes that fit better and weighed less than their existing workout clothes.

One of the things that the survey verified was that people who are overweight prefer clothes that stretch better. The kids really didn’t care about name brand or clothes that had a popular sports team. I don’t think the questions really focus on this, however, and that would be a good topic for another study.
This was a pilot study. The survey numbers were kept low so that the kinks could be worked out before doing the study on a larger scale. This fact might be a limitation that would give people wrong impressions about the results.
Another study I found wanted to see if using computer agents to help kids exercise outside of a school setting. The researchers divided some middle school students into three groups. The first group was asked to follow an exercise program that was outlined using written materials. Another group was given instructions from a computer agent. The third group had a computer coach model that also had a computer kid that modeled the exercises.
They wanted to see if self-efficacy could be increased by using a computer based exercise program rather than using books or pamphlets.
The students were given a survey prior to the exercise program to measure their selfefficacy at the beginning of the study. The study mentioned a couple of the exercise points that were delivered by one of the three methods. The first session of exercise instruction was how exercise was good for you. The last session showed the students how to put together a fitness log. There was also a survey given after the sessions.
The results showed that the kids who had the computer based instruction without a peer model showed the most increase of self-efficacy. This seemed to prove that most kids enjoy learning from a computer rather than reading materials from paper. The researchers also said that the coach model with the peer model had too much action going on the screen and that the kids probably couldn’t focus as well on the material delivered.
One of the limitations of this study was that some of the kids already participated in organized sports outside of school. They could have studied either kids who were in organized sports or kids who did not participate in organized sports outside of the school setting.
Most kids would rather learn using technology. Physical Education is difficult to teach using computers because of the hands-on approach that is needed. This study shows that computerized instruction is better using paper materials. I also think that using computer based instruction for P.E. is better than no instruction at all.
Another research article I looked at dealt with strategies to get people motivated to attend a dance class. The researchers interviewed ten young people between the ages of 14 and 26. These people were attending dance classes outside of school in private sessions. They

were interviewed and asked questions about why they wanted to join the dance classes, what they did in the dance classes, and the benefits of the dance classes.
The results of the research showed that dancing can be a very rewarding choice for a physical activity. I want to include the bullets showing the results from the research since I think they were easy to read and were straight to the point:
1. Dance classes foster respect for physical activity and expertise acquired over the long term.
2. Dance class participants gain self-confidence with respect both to their bodily experiences and social relationships.
3. Dance classes increase respect between older and younger people in a physical activity context.
4. Dance classes are sites for exploring or maintaining social, community/cultural, recreational or intersubjective values.
5. Dance-class participation can involve experiences of self, body and world that lie beyond the everyday.
(Gardner and Fensham 2008)
One of the limitations of this study is the small sample of participants that they studied.
It would be interesting if someone would study a larger sample that would also be spread out geographically. The researchers also failed to include people who were not enrolled in a dance class from the beginning. The people interviewed were already enrolled at a session voluntarily.
I am not a dance person. According to this research, dance can be an excellent part of a physical education class. I am looking to tie in the last study with this study. I would like to tweak the last study a little bit and find a dance DVD to play for the kids to follow instead of using a computer. I think this type of technology would be a bigger motivator of dance than I would be.
I found three articles that researched the Self-Determination Theory in Physical
Education. The first article (Assor, Vansteenkiste, and Kaplan) wanted to find out whether kids are motivated by trying to avoid looking bad or motivated by attained high self-worth.
They chose to sample top sports players instead of regular students playing sports. They reasoned that the top players might be more focused on self-worth than the regular students.
The athletes were given a survey that asked about their well- being. They used the athletes’ coaches’ evaluations for performance instead of using a questionnaire from the athletes themselves.

The results of this research suggest that these individuals would perform and feel much better if they would focus on the personal value of the sport they engage in rather than on the implications of their engagement of sport for their self-worth or others’ regard for them.
(Assor, Vansteenkiste, and Kaplan 2009)
Two articles about the Self-Determination Theory (Bryan and Solomon 2007 and Taylor and Ntoumanis 2007) were really just essays that were written about the use of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
There was an article (Martin and Sharpe 2009) about using public posting as a means of motivation. It was also an essay that gave pointers on how to post student results to get the students motivated.