AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON CHARACTERS AND RELATIONSHIPS AMONG PARTICIPATION MOTIVATIONS AND RELATED ELEMENTS OF YOUTH BASKETBALL PLAYERS

Abstract

Problem Statement: Since the Youth Olympic Summer Games became a new global sports event in 2010 and is held every four years, youth athletes’ behaviors and factors that motivated them to continually participate in the sport they choose have become interesting research inquiries: what are the reasons/factors that really motivated them continually engaged in the sports they love? Can these reasons/factors be identified and predicted? Purpose: The purposes of this study were to examine the traits of essential factors that motivated the youth basketball players to participate in their practices and competitions; examine how Gender, Supporting, Goal-setting, Years Playing Basketball related elements impacted their levels of participation-motivations; and the relationships among these psychological needs and motivation factors. Furthermore, the predictors among the psychological needs associated with their essential motivation factors were also explored. Methods: The Adapted Youth Basketball Players' Participation-Motivations Questionnaire was used for data collection; and Self-Determination Theory was used as the theoretical framework; the participants were 253 youth basketball players (Boys = 136, Girls = 117). Data analyses were done by a 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 factorial MANOVA, exploratory factor analysis, and multiple regression analyses. Results: Findings indicate that Supporting and Goal-setting elements had significant effects on the youth basketball players’ participation-motivations, but Gender and Years Play Basketball elements did not. The youth basketball players who were supported by parents possessed higher participant motivations than those supported by their schools. The participants who set their goals for professionals possessed higher participation-motivations than those who set goals for non-professional. Conclusions: In conclusion, through multiple statistics approaches and analyses, the traits and relationships among the youth basketball players’ participation-motivations, and how their motivations associate with the four related elements can be identified and predicted. Article visualizations: