The purpose of the present study was to determine the relationship between ego and task goal orientations on various dimensions of empowerment with ...
Goal Orientations and Empowerment of Individuals with a Disability in the Sport Context Marit Sørensen, and Glyn C. Roberts, The Norwegian University of Sport Science, Norway The purpose of the present study was to determine the relationship between ego and task goal orientations on various dimensions of empowerment with athletes with a disability. Empowerment is defined as a process by which individuals gain mastery and control over their own lives. Participants were 396 athletes in Norwegian Sports clubs, 211 with a disability of various types and degrees, and were the focus of this investigation. We measured goal orientations, Sports-based Empowerment, General Empowerment, Empowerment Self-Esteem and Athletic Identity through questionnaires. We conducted MANOVA analysis and found that a significant interaction effect superseded main effects for Gender and Disability. We conducted Canonical Correlation analyses separately for males and females and those with and without a disability. Two meaningful functions emerged (greater than 10%) for each analysis. For those with a disability, both men and women had a function where the predictor variables were high in both task and ego orientation, and in general were positively associated with empowerment. The second function revealed a strong ego orientation for men, and a strong task orientation for women. For athletes with a disability, being task oriented was positively associated with empowerment. Being task oriented meant that the athletes with a disability experienced greater empowerment within the sport context. However, ego orientation demonstrated some positive relationships to empowerment self esteem. For able bodied athletes, in general task orientation was associated with empowerment, and ego orientation was not.
Sport has been credited for teaching positive values and building of character and physique. On the other hand, sport has also been criticised for being overly focused on performance enhancement and being indifferent to both the role of sports as a cultural practice, as well as the physical and psycho-social consequences for the athletes (Sage, 1992). However, sport can be viewed as a neutral context that is imbued with the values one wishes to place on it. Recently, an alternative perspective is to view sport in an empowerment context, and that it is empowering for minorities and for athletes with a disability. Empowerment Empowerment is here defined as: “the process by which individuals develop skills and abilities to gain control over their lives and to take action to improve their life situation” (Gutierrez, 1990). The concept of empowerment reflects a humanistic basis and is rooted in a “social action” and “self-help” ideology (Freire, 1970; Kiefer, 1984, Rappaport, 1981). This implies a belief that given opportunities and resources, people will develop abilities and skills in order to ensure survival and the best possible life for both individuals and the community. If they do not, it is because of limiting social structures and lack of resources to utilise their competencies (Rappaport, 1987). In an empowerment perspective the concern is to facilitate and resources to free and develop self-corrective capacities (Rappaport, 1987). A central element is power, which is connected to authority, domination and/or exploitation. Athletes have reported sport to be an empowering arena by offering several psychological benefits for individuals with disabilities (Skurdal, 1984; Sørensen & Pensgaard, 1999a). Carkhuff (1971) claimed that systematic training programs would increase and facilitate individuals’ physical, intellectual, emotional, and interpersonal functioning. The empowerment perspective was first introduced in the area of disability sport by Hutzler (1990), and other researchers (e.g., Blinde & Taub, 1999; Porretta & Moore, 1997; Sherrill, 1999) have also suggested that an empowerment perspective is promising. According to Sherrill and Wilhite (1995) International Paralympics Sport Science Committee has listed empowerment as a priority research topic. Achievement Goals In a framework for research on empowerment of individuals with a disability through the sport context, it was suggested that achievement goal orientations and identity may mediate the perception of empowerment at an individual level, as suggested in figure 1 (Pensgaard & Sorensen, 2002). The rationale for believing that goal orientations may affect empowerment is based on the argument that in achievement goal theory, one’s motivational orientation may make one more susceptible to perceiving empowerment. Specifically, if one is task versus ego oriented, then one is more likely to be empowered. Achievement goal theory is a social cognitive motivational theory developed by Nicholls (1984; 1989) and others, which describes the process of motivation based upon one’s achievement goal. A basic assumption in this theory is that when one enters an achievement setting, one’s goal is to develop or to demonstrate competence. However, there are two conceptions of competence, and these form the basis of two goal orientations, named task and ego. When a person has a task goal perspective, normative ability is not relevant. The concern is to demonstrate competence through improvement and mastery of the task, and the criteria for success are self-referenced (Nicholls, 1989). When a person has an ego goal perspective, normative ability is relevant. The concern is to demonstrate superiority and competence compared to others, and the criteria for success are other-referenced.
Over the past two decades, research has demonstrated that goal orientations are related to cognitive, affective and behavioral patterns in meaningful ways (see reviews by e.g. Duda, 1993; Roberts, 2001; Roberts, Treasure, & Kavassanu, 1997). Typically, persons with a high ego orientation tend to have reduced persistence in the face of failure (Duda , 1988), exert little effort (Roberts & Treasure, 1995), avoid practice and challenge (Lochbaum & Roberts, 1993), experience more anxiety prior to competition (Hall & Kerr, 1997), and to drop out of sport (Ewing, 1981). Persons with high levels of task orientation, on the other hand, report more adaptive achievements strategies in that they persist in face of failure (Roberts & Ommundsen, 1996), select challenging tasks, experience more intrinsic motivation (Kavassanu & Roberts, 1996), and continue involvement in their sport (Duda, 1988). Individuals are assumed to be disposed to be task and/or ego oriented. Differences in disposition may be the result of socialization through task or ego involving climates in the home, and previous experiences in sport. Assuming that sport represents a setting for a potential increase of empowerment (Birrell & Richter, 1987), we hypothesize that an individual’s achievement goal perspective when he/she enters the sports field can mediate this experience. For example, a person who is predominantly ego oriented, has low perceived ability due to a disability and experience that others perform better, may be intimidated and feel that sports participation is a threat to his or her empowerment. A person with a high ego goal perspective believes that he or she is valued based on how one compares with others. However, a person with a task goal perspective will be less preoccupied with how he or she performs compared to others because performance and normative results are of less importance. They simply want to get better at what they do. It is participating in the sport to the best of one’s ability that leads to increased empowerment. A few studies of achievement goal orientations of athletes with disability have been reported. Sherrill and Williams (1996) concluded from three studies that athletes with disabilities on the whole were more task than ego orientated. White and Duda (1993) found that junior athletes held both ego and task orientations, but were higher on task orientation. Pensgaard, Ursin and Roberts (1999) found no difference between motivational goal profiles of Olympic and Paralympic athletes. Both scored consistently higher on task than on ego orientation. With this background, we hypothesized that individuals with a disability are more likely to experience empowerment through the sport context if they are task oriented. Identity Disability is a multidimensional identity that is socially constructed and hence specific to culture and history (Sherrill, 1997). The development of an identity progresses through different stages. The final stage of the identity process is that of a synthesis, where the various aspects of the identity (e.g. disability) are united and accepted (Cass, 1984). Type and degree of the disability will represent various challenges and influence the process (Sherrill, Rainbolt, Montelione, & Pope, 1986). In sport, athletes with a disability are not likely to perform at the same level as their able bodied counterparts, unless the disability is minor, or one is engaged in a type of sport where the disability does not matter for sport performance. Identifying with other disability sport athletes seems to enhance the development of an identity synthesis (Sorensen, 2000). Many athletes with a disability have reported that being identified as an athlete has helped them coming to terms with their disability (Skurdal, 1994; Sorensen & Pensgaard, 1999b). Further, an identity as an athlete has been reported to shift the focus towards resources that can be developed in spite of the disability (Sorensen, 2000). Therefore, we hypothesized that a strong identification with the role as an athlete would enhance empowerment through the sport context, and that this may be of greater importance for athletes with a disability than their able-bodied counterparts. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between ego and task goal orientation, athletic identity, and dimensions of individual empowerment of athletes with and without a disability. Method In 2002, we investigated a sample of 396 athletes in Norwegian sports clubs that had experience with individuals with a disability. Due to legal restrictions in keeping registers with sensitive personal data, finding the athletes with a disability was a challenge in itself, as Norwegian legislation protects registration of that type of information. We contacted leaders in sport clubs that were registered by the Confederation of Sports as offering activities for people with disability, and asked them to distribute questionnaires to the disabled athletes and these were returned by mail. In clubs with members both with and without a disability, we asked the leaders to give the questionnaire to approximately twice the number of members without a disability in order to balance the numbers from those clubs with disability groups only. The data cannot be said to be representative for either group because the total population of disability sport athletes is not known. We also do not know the number of able-bodied sport club members who have been active together with individuals with a disability. In the sample from the sports clubs, 211 (53.3%) individuals had a disability of various types and degrees, and 176 (44.4%) were without a disability, while 9 individuals did not give that information. Three individuals reported to have a disability without specifying the type. There were 153 females (39.2%) and 237 males (60.8 %), 6 did not give information about sex. In analyses involving sex and disability, the individuals that did not provide information about these variables were excluded from the analyses. Age ranged from 9 to 87 years, with the mean age being 39 years. The participants took part in 26 different sports including health sport clubs (mainly for people with disabilities). For those that would like to know the types of disability, that information is available from the first author.
Measurements
In a questionnaire, we measured empowerment, achievement goals, athletic identity and background information on sports participation and disability. Empowerment As a measure of empowerment, we used a scale developed by Rogers et al. (1997) A three item scale measures general empowerment, which is a general belief that people can influence their surroundings, and a 7 item scale measures empowerment self esteem (the individual perception of being able to take charge of one’s own life). Empowerment through sports (how much one believes that sports contribute to empowerment) was measured by a 7 item scale (Sorensen & Pensgaard, 1999a). Reliability of the scales was demonstrated by internal consistency (measured by Chronbach alpha coefficients). For the general empowerment scale, the Cronbach alpha coefficient was .76, for the sport empowerment it was .77, and for the empowerment self esteem scale it was .89. Goal orientations Goal orientations were measured by the POSQ, developed by Roberts, Treasure and Balague (1998) and translated into Norwegian by Roberts and Ommundsen (1996). Internal consistency for the 6 item scale measuring task orientation was .88, and for the six item scale measuring ego orientation .91. Identity We measured the social identity as an athlete by the Athletic Identity Scale (AIS) (Brewer, Van Raalte & Linder, 1993). The scale has seven items that measure the strength and exclusivity of identification with the athlete role. Internal consistency for this scale was .86. Statistical Analyses
We first performed a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) in order to determine find main effects of gender and disability. In order to examine the relationship between achievement goal orientations and the other variables, we performed a canonical correlation analysis with task and ego orientation as criterion variables and general empowerment, sports empowerment, empowerment self-esteem and athletic identity as predictor variables. Results Descriptive statistics for the measures are given in table 1. First, we ran a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with gender and disability as the independent variables and the empowerment measures as dependent variables. The main effect of gender was significant (F(4,331) = 8.459, p
