PSDA Project 2
Students’ Motivation for Sport Activity Participation in University Sports
Introduction:
Adolescence and emerging adulthood is a time of physical, social, psychological, and structural changes, which may influence barriers to and motivations for physical activity. University students represent a specific subgroup in this period as they are particularly affected by changing structural life circumstances with the start of their studies. Students’ daily lives are characterized by sedentary behavior
(e.g., attending university classes); however, physical activity in this age group is important, because future patterns of adult health are established already at this stage of life. In addition, obesity resulting from a lack of physical activity in this age group can have adverse health consequences later in life.
A variety of studies have been conducted to identify reasons for participating in physical activity and potential barriers to being physically active in adolescence and young adulthood. Motivation for physical activity is often measured by asking about its benefits; there is no consistent way of categorizing items, and often an “intrinsic motivation” category has been used. The essential benefits identified in former studies have been “health” and “fun”.
These former studies were mainly quantitative and followed a similar procedure (i.e., using a predefined, self-reported questionnaire). Results were discussed without reflecting them back to the target group, which is often necessary to gain a deeper insight to the following questions: (1) what are the aspects underlying the individual response categories? (2) What motivates these responses? And (3) are there
Other, more specific aspects associated with the response categories that were neglected? So far, these questions have not been answered. By using a mixed-methods approach.
Consisting of a quantitative survey and qualitative reflection, we contribute to a deeper understanding of motivation for physical activity among university students. Moreover, besides gathering information on general motivators for physical activity, further details on sport programs that are offered to university students are also needed. To enhance the benefits of a university sports program, it is important to target the program to the needs of the students. However, there is a lack of target-group-specific
Recommendations for the future development of university sports. While quantitative results may help to identify how many students participate in university sports, a qualitative analysis is useful in exploring participants’ needs and providing concrete suggestions for program improvement.
Consequently, we bridged existing knowledge gaps by using data from a mixed-methods study conducted among university students. We aimed to quantify the importance of predetermined potential reasons for sport activity, reflect the target groups’ quantitative results by using qualitative interviews to garner a deeper understanding of the reasons and to identify neglected reasons to analyze content validity quantify the utilization of the university sports program, and collect information on its potential improvement.
Type of Data Testing and Review
- Hypothesis Testing
Variables and elements:
- Hypothesis statement
- Test Statistic on mean and standard deviation
- Level of confidence
- Conclusion/Decision Rule
- Correlation Analysis
Variables and elements:
- Scatter plot
- Population correlation coefficient
- Sample correlation coefficient
- Regression Analysis
Variables and elements:
- Scatter plot
- Interpretation of the Slop and the Intercept
- Coefficient of Determination
- Inferences about the Slope
- Chi-square Test of Independence Analysis
Variables and elements:
- Goodness-of-fit
- Expected and observed variables
Discussion:
To our knowledge, this study is among the first to combine quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze university students’ motivation for sports engagement. Our study underlines the importance of combining quantitative and qualitative research approaches, since our qualitative analysis identified additional reasons for sport participation that were not addressed by the quantitative instrument. However, such a procedure can be helpful to analyze content validity. In addition, we assessed the perception and the utilization of university sports, which is a key form of physical activity in this target group.
The importance of fun, health, and well-being have been stated as key reasons for physical activity in previous studies. Besides analyzing individual items, we used a quantitative factor analysis to group participants’ reasons for sports engagement. Our findings underline the importance of including the target group in the process of developing assessment methods such as questionnaires.
The university sports program was positively evaluated by most of the students. Lack of time was mentioned as the most important barrier for nonparticipation in university sports. This is in line with previous research. An aspect that was often criticized by students in our qualitative interviews was overcrowded courses. Students also mentioned that the maintenance of the sports program during semester break and the harmonization of class schedule with the start of sport courses would be beneficial.
This study is among the first in combining quantitative and qualitative data und thus comes to profound results. Nonetheless, there are some limitations that should be considered while interpreting our results. First, we used convenience sampling, a type of nonprobability sampling. Therefore, there could be participation bias. Second, participants answered some questions retrospectively; therefore, there may be recall bias. However, this bias was not a problem in our pretests. Third, because of the cross-sectional design of the survey, it is not possible to identify causal relationships. Since our overall aim was to explore motivation and barriers for physical activity, this shortcoming played a trivial role.
Conclusion:
Our study is a lesson in the importance of combining quantitative and qualitative methods. Only if those who are directly affected—in this case, students exposed to sedentary behavior—are involved in the development of survey tools can the reasons for participating in sports be comprehensively and exhaustively assessed. Our findings provide key implications for other researchers working in this field. Nearly half of the students participated in university sports, which underlines their importance. By following the recommendations for improvement made by the students (i.e., maintenance of the sports program during semester breaks and the harmonization of class schedule with the start of sport courses), stakeholders can enable even more students to participate in university sports and to benefit from the program. This would be a crucial step towards an increase in physical activity in this target group and thus a relevant contribution to their current and future health.
VIDEO PRESENTATION