Coach‐ and Peer‐Created Motivational Climate Profiles in Youth Sport: Associations With Enjoyment and Intentions to Continue

ABSTRACT

Understanding the motivational climate is crucial for comprehending athletes' experiences in sports. We used latent profile analysis to identify subgroups of youth athletes based on their perceptions of motivational climates from coaches and peers and examined how these profiles related to enjoyment levels and intentions to continue participation. Boys and girls aged 12–14 years ( N  = 272, 48.5% girls) were recruited from the Norwegian youth sport context. A five‐profile solution was retained. Moreover, results showed that the profile characterized by high perceptions of a mastery climate and low perceptions of a performance climate, created by both coaches and peers, was associated with greater enjoyment than the other four profiles. Athletes in this profile also demonstrated a stronger intention to continue than those in a profile with low perceptions of a coach‐ and peer‐created mastery climate in combination with high perceptions of a coach‐ and peer‐created performance climate, as well as those in a profile with low perceptions of a coach‐ and peer‐created mastery climate. Compared with the profile with low coach‐performance perceptions, gender significantly predicted membership in the profile with low perceptions of a coach‐ and peer‐created mastery climate, combined with high perceptions of a coach‐ and peer‐created performance climate. This was the only gender difference in profile membership, indicating comparable likelihoods for boys and girls across profiles. In conclusion, profiles characterized by moderate‐to‐high perceptions of mastery climate, regardless of coach‐created performance climate levels, reported higher enjoyment than profiles with low mastery perceptions.