ORTHOGONALITY OF ACHIEVEMENT GOALS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO BELIEFS ABOUT SUCCESS AND SATISFACTION IN SPORT

The present study examined the relationship between dispositional achi evement goal orientations and satisfaction and beliefs about success i n sport. Participants were 333 students who were administered the Perc eption of Success Questionnaire (POSQ) (Roberts ge Balague, 1989, 1991 ; Roberts, Treasure, & Balague, 1995), Beliefs about Success, and Sati sfaction/Interest/Boredom Questionnaires (Duda & Nicholls, 1992). Cons istent with theory (Nicholls, 1984, 1989) and previous research, task and ego goal orientations were found to be orthogonal. Following an ex treme group split of the task and ego subscales of the POSQ, results o f a 2 x 2 (High/Low Ego; High/Low Task) multivariate analyses of varia nce revealed a significant interaction effect between task and ego ori entation. Specifically, participants high in ego and low in task orien tation believed effort to be less a cause of success white high task/l ow ego-oriented individuals were the least likely to attribute success to external factors. The findings are discussed in terms of their mot ivational implications for athletes.