A 10-item Thurstonian paired comparison inventory pertaining to factors underlying sport enjoyment was administered to 822 youth sport participants. The sample included participants at four age levels (7-8, 9-10, 11-12, and 13-14 years) from the three sports, soccer (n = 330), baseball (n = 176), and hockey (n = 343). Considerable consistency was found across both sport and age levels in the relative importance of the different enjoyment factors. Factors that were interpreted as being intrinsic to the sport activity (excitement of the sport, personal accomplishment, improving one's skills, testing skills against others, and just doing the skills) were consistently rated as being most important, whereas more extrinsic or outcome-related factors (pleasing others, winning rewards, winning the game) were consistently rated least important of the 10 factors. The social items “being on a team” and “being with friends” were consistently of intermediate importance. The results are interpreted in terms of contemporary views of intrinsic motivation, and suggestions are offered both for future research and for youth sport practice.

A review of open-ended and structured approaches to assessing youth sport motivation reveals that each has certain strengths and limitations. Hence, the method of choice for a particular study will depend upon the particular problem addressed. In order to examine the comparability of results obtained from different methodologies, a study was conducted to compare the results pertaining to factors underlying sport enjoyment obtained from open-ended and Thurstonian paired comparison inventories. Although a number of similarities appeared in the results across the two methodologies (e.g., personal accomplishment, excitement of the sport, and just doing the skills were important, while getting rewards and pleasing others were relatively unimportant), there were also some differences reflecting the particular methodologies. A consideration of previous research employing a broader variety of methodological approaches (open-ended, ranking, Likert scaling, Thurstone paired comparisons) further indicates that although the particular methodology utilized does affect the results obtained, certain important motivational factors tend to surface regardless of the methodology employed.

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