JOURNAL OF SPORT & EXERCISE PSYCHOLOGY, 1994.16.365-380 O 1994 Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc. Sport Motivation Orientations: Beware of Jingle- Jangle Fallacies Herbert W. Marsh University of Western Sydney, Macarthur The similarity of the constructs measured by the Perceptions of Success Questionnaire (POS; Roberts, 1993) and the Sports Orientation Question- naire (SOQ; Gill, 1993) were evaluated using (a) confirmatory factor analy- ses of responses by 395 high school students (217 males, 178 females, ages 12 to 18) to items adapted from the two instruments and (b) relations to external criteria. Although the POS Mastery and SOQ Goal scales were highly related and reflected task orientation, the SOQ Competitiveness scale was more highly correlated with the POS Mastery and SOQ Goal scales than with the POS Competitiveness scale. Apparently, competitiveness assessed by the SOQ reflects a task orientation, whereas the POS Competi- tiveness scale reflects primarily an ego orientation. Sport psychologists need to beware of jingle (scales with the same label reflect the same construct) and jangle (scales with different labels measure different con- struct) fallacies, and pursue construct validity studies more vigorously to test the interpretations of measures. Key words: physical self-concept, confirmatory factor analysis, construct validity, Sport Orientation Questionnaire, Perceptions of Success Question- naire, Physical Self-Description Questionnaire Recent research on achievement motivation has integrated research on cognitive and affective components of goal-directed behaviors (Ames, 1992; Duda, 1993; Dweck, 1986; Maehr & Braskamp, 1986; Nicholls, 1984, 1989; Roberts, 1993; Stipek, 1988; Treasure & Roberts, 1994; Vealey, 1986). Diverse research programs have converged on two contrasting dispositional goal orienta- tions or achievement motivation constructs. These have been variously called learning, task-orientation, mastery and intrinsic orientations, as opposed to ego- enhancement, competitive, performance and extrinsic orientations. Following Nicholls (1984; also.see Duda, 1993; Treasure & Roberts, 1994), the terms task and ego will be used to characterize these two dispositional goal orientations in this study. Herbert W. Marsh is with the Faculty of Education at the University of Western Sydney, Macarthur, PO Box 555, Campbelltown, NSW 2560, Australia.