Interaction of Goal Orientation, Self-Efficacy and Self-Handicap on Sports and Academic Learning Strategies in Physical Education Students

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among goal orientation, self-efficacy and self-handicapping in students, whose major is physical education (PE). We further examined the interaction of sports goal orientation and academic self-efficacy on sports self-handicapping, and demonstrated the interaction of academic goal orientation and sports self-efficacy on academic self-handicapping. Data were collected with one week separation in academic and sports disciplines from 3 diverse samples of university students, who were major in PE (N = 354). Results revealed that the interaction of task-orientation and self-efficacy was significantly predicted the self-handicapping, which was observed in both academic and sports. The interaction of sport ego-orientation and academic self-efficacy significantly predicted the sport self-handicapping. Three conclusions from this study were as follows; first, goal orientation, self-efficacy, and self-handicapping were useful to understand the PE students' learning motivation and attitude in both sports and academic fields. Second, the learning self-efficacy could be generalized, and decrease self-handicapping for sports and academic disciplines. Third, academic self-efficacy was interactive with sports ego-orientation, which maybe probable in self-regulation pitfalls, and needed more reasons to explain his/her failure in sports.