Study of Cultural Differences in Motivational Orientations towards Sport Participation of Junior Secondary School Children in Four Cultures

Abstract

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in English; abstract also in Chinese.The study of motivational orientations of participants is essential in designing physical education or sport programs in enhancing their enjoyment and persistence. People from different regions may adopt different motivational orientations during participating in physical activities. This study compared junior secondary school students (N = 1,083) from Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Hungary and Romania on three motivational orientations, two goal orientations and competitive trait anxiety. The data were analyzed with a four (country) by two (gender) multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA). Results indicated that relative to the other cultures, Hong Kong scored higher in goal orientations, while Hungary and Romania were quite homogenous and scored higher in both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations; the United Kingdom scored relatively lower in all scores. Cultural difference in gender was not prominent with females scoring in a more unfavorable condition towards sport participation. These findings were discussed relative to cultural influences and concluded that cultural factors should be considered in sport motivational research.參與體育活動的動機研究，對於組織及設計體育活動非常重要，以達到參與者能享受及長期參與體育活動的目的。本研究將參與體育活動的動機分為「內/外發動機」、「目標定向」及「競賽焦慮」，以跨文化方式作出探索，分別在香港、英國、匈牙利及羅馬尼捚(N = 1,083)，以收集問卷形式進行。結果表示不同的文化，對參與體育活動的動機有不同的影響，推論到在進行研究時，要考慮文化影響的重要性。