Does motivation differ depending on young athletes opinions on specialization? : A quantitative study about youth team sports

Abstract: Aim  The purpose of the study is to investigate whether motivation differ depending on young athletes opinions on specialization.  Problem statement:- Does motivation type differ depending on young athletes opinions on specialization?  Method  We have chosen to use a quantitative working method. In the collection of data, we used a questionnaire, which is divided into two parts, where in one part we took inspiration from a previously established survey but we adapted it for our population and research aim. In the second part, we have used the Swedish version of The Behavioral Regulation in Sport Questionnaire (BRSQ). Thirty handball and ice hockey students from nationally approved sports educations (NIU) participated in the study (handball players = 15; ice hockey players = 15; 73% male) to examine how motivation differs depending on their opinions of specialization. We investigated whether there were any differences regarding motivation for those who had different opinions about specialization.  Results  The result of our study shows that there are no significant differences in autonomous and controlled motivation between the two groups who had different opinions about specialization. But in our data analysis, we saw that there is a significant difference between the groups regarding amotivation, where the less positive group showed a higher degree of amotivation.  Conclusion  Our conclusion that we draw from our study is that opinions about specialization from young athletes who attend sports training at NIU high schools in Sweden do not impact on their motivation in sports in terms of the autonomous and controlled motivation types. On the other hand, we found a significant difference between the groups in terms of amotivation.