THE EFFECTS OF GOAL-SETTING METHOD ON GOAL ATTRIBUTES IN ATHLETES - AFIELD EXPERIMENT

Previous literature on goal setting indicates that athlete participati on in the goal-setting process can improve performance (cf. Kyllo & La nders, 1995). Much of the past research, however, has been criticized for using contrived environments where the motivation and involvement of the participants is questionable. This field experiment examined th e effect of three methods of goal-setting (participative, assigned, an d self-set) on various goal attributes. Track and field athletes (N = 67) were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental conditions . Results of between-groups ANOVAs showed a significant difference in the perception of the amount of participation athletes perceived in ea ch of the three conditions, indicating the success of the manipulation . Further analyses, however, revealed no advantage to the participativ e and self-set conditions compared to the assigned condition in terms of goal attributes. The influence of goal-setting method on other goal attributes may be spurious or due to other contextual variables.