This paper reports the first in a series of quantitative studies in an ongoing explanatory sequential mixed methods research design on Movement Competence Ambition (MCA) among human kinetics students in state public universities within the South-Western geo-political zone of Nigeria. The study holds and treats ambition as a psycho-philosophical concept. This study compares the impact of two psychosocial strategies: focus group discussion and parental involvement on subjects’ academic motivation and engagement. The Data were collected with standardised instruments. Purposive (Volunteer) sampling technique was used to select 36 participants from the pool of 418 (199, 47.6% males; 219, 52.4% females); x̅ age = 20 years and 1 month) poorly ambitious Sports Science students. Participants were randomly assigned to two experimental and one control groups: focus group discussion, parental involvement, and control. The collected data were processed with WINKS 7.0.6 BASIC Edition. Student t-test and Analysis of Variance (one-way ANOVA) result revealed focus group discussion did not impact academic motivation (t = 1.76; p = 0.09); but impacted student engagement (t = 17.66; with p = 0.001). Parental involvement impacted both dependent variables with t = 4.07; p = 0.001 on academic motivation and t = 6.19; p = 0.001 on student engagement. ANOVA results were f = 2.23 where p 0.12 >0.05 no impact on academic motivation whereas impacted student engagement f = 203.25 where p 0.001 <0.05. Recommendation was offered on the demonstrated strength of parental involvement.