Abstract
The purpose of this study is as follows; 1) to examine whether students' learning motives for physical education change through a unit of gymnastics any 2) to examine the factors influencing the learning motives, which are learning result, classmate's interaction and teacher's interaction. The investigation instrument regarding the students' learning motives was marking the questionnaire (six factors with 34 items) standardized by Ito (2001), and what consists of five factors (practice, group, fulfillment, approval, and superiority orientations) with 10 items. The subjects were one hundred and eighteen Japanese elementary students in five upper-grade classes participating in a unit of gymnastics.
The following results were obtained. The students' learning motives after the unit of gymnastics improved significantly as compared with the learning motives before the unit of gymnastics. Moreover it was suggested that students' learning motives could be improved when students consequently get a learning result, establish effective relationships with classmates, and perceive the teacher's interaction as useful.
