Life Skills Development Through Sport in Brazil: A Study Based on Self-Determination Theory

Abstract

This study investigated whether a large sample of youth participants’ life skills development through sport was impacted by demographic variables and/or variables based on self-determination theory. Participants were 461 Brazilian youth sport (325 boys; 136 girls) aged 10–17 years (Mage = 15.12, SD = 1.44). Participants completed a self-report research survey to assess demographic variables, coach autonomy support, basic need satisfaction, and sport motivation. We analyzed data using cluster analysis, a chi-square test and multivariate analysis of variance. We found that sport participants in the high life skills development cluster were older (p =.007) and had more years of sport experience (p =.032). Compared to the low life skills development cluster, sports participants in the high life skills development cluster displayed higher scores for coach’s autonomy support (p =.001), autonomy satisfaction (p =.002), competence satisfaction (p =.001), relatedness satisfaction (p =.001), and identified regulation (p =.023). In practice, these findings indicate that coaches should seek to satisfy participants’ three basic psychological needs and encourage an identified regulation form of motivation when trying to promote participants’ life skills development through sport.