Résumé
Youth sport offers an optimal context to foster positive youth development (PYD), with intentionality in program design and coach approach considered integral to youth’s positive experiences and outcomes. Specifically, mastery-oriented climates that promote effort, task mastery, and personal improvement have been associated with improved self-efficacy, athlete satisfaction, and positive experiences (Strachan et al., 2011). Despite this, current trends suggest high-performance sport often adopts an performance-oriented climate, which may be counterintuitive in fostering PYD outcomes. As limited research has explored motivational climates in high-performance youth sport, specifically among girl populations, this study examined (a) the nature of motivational climates in high-performance girls’ soccer in Canada, and (b) the relationship between motivational climates and PYD experiences in high-performance girls’ soccer in Canada. Girl athletes (N=46) ages 16-18 (M=16.5) that actively took part in high-performance soccer programs across Canada completed online surveys (i.e., Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire, PMCSQ-2; Peer Motivational Climate in Youth Sport Questionnaire, PeerMCYSQ; Youth Experience Survey for Sport, YES-S). Results suggest that high-performance girls’ soccer environments adopted elements of mastery- and performance-oriented climates. While coaches and team structures often promoted both outcome-focused and effort-based values, peer-created climates were perceived as more strongly mastery-oriented, suggesting that athletes may have fostered a more supportive, improvement-focused atmosphere among themselves, than the atmosphere fostered within the broader coach-led team environment. Further, findings revealed that peer-created mastery-oriented climates were a predictor of personal and social skill development. Implications for practice within girls’ high-performance sport environments, and areas for future research are discussed.
