Preliminary Study for Development of a Motivating Tool for Children's Fencing

Abstract

The purpose of the thesis was to find solutions to the commissioning party’s, Oulun Miekkailuseura ry, problem of decreasing motivation to do fencing among young children. The thesis was executed in the form of a preliminary study of motivational tools for children participating in sport. In addition, based on the reasoning behind the surveyed motivational tools, a sport pass was developed. The theoretical framework of the thesis begins with a brief introduction and analysis chapter of fencing, from where the topic proceeds to motivation. Furthermore, the motivational theory applied was self-determination theory and the rest of the theoretical framework was gathered inter alia from sport biographies and studies in sport psychology. Implementing the theoretical background within various versions of the sport pass was completed for instance by combining motivational theories and sport biographies. The service design aspect was utilized in the trial adaptations of the tool with the Service Design Toolkit by JAMK University of Applied Sciences (2012).

The thesis was activity based, specifically a research study with a preliminary product development process. The research question of the thesis was divided into three main parts: what is known about motivation in sport and exercise based on previously conducted research, especially related to children’s motivation, and how to develop a product for (children’s) fencing based on these? Deductive reasoning was used to describe the theories and concepts. Furthermore, the method used was literature review, specifically a descriptive literature review and through which a product development process was implemented.

The research part intended to discover the reasoning behind the sport pass. For instance, why the pass could be comprised of segments including inherent psychological needs; autonomy, competence, and relatedness, or factors creating meaningfulness to do sports. The aim was to make the pass motivating for 6 to 10-year-old children to use. Consequently, the author developed five versions of the product to examine different segmentation and layout options.