An examination of the determinants to recreational sports participation among college students

Problem. The problem of this study was to examine which undergraduate college students participate in each of two categories of recreational sports and to examine the determinants of the level of participation among subjects in those two categories. The two categories of recreational sports examined were intramural sports participation and informal sports participation.;Procedures. After a review of the literature, including several existing questionnaires, the investigator set out to develop an instrument appropriate for the problem presented. The instrument was pretested, revised, and pilot tested for reliability.;The instrument was mailed to 988 undergraduate students. The study sample consisted of 436 usable questionnaires which represented 44.13 percent of the population surveyed.;Once the questionnaires were returned, the information was inspected for useability, coded, and analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The chi-square analysis was utilized to examine the nominal data generated by the survey questionnaire. The researcher then performed a factor analysis on the items measuring motivations for recreational sports participation. Three motivational factors were produced from the factor analysis. These factors were analyzed along with the categorical independent variables for use in a multiple regression analysis.;Findings. Based on the analyses and interpretations of the data, the findings from the study include: (1) Significant differences existed between genders regarding their likelihood to participate in recreational sports and their level of participation. (2) Significant differences existed between students' residence location regarding their likelihood to participate in intramural recreational sports and their level of participation. (3) Significant differences existed between previous sports participation regarding the likelihood to participate in recreational sports. (4) Extrinsic motivators and intrinsic motivators were significantly and positively associated with the level of intramural recreational sports participation. (5) Intrinsic motivators were significantly and positively associated with the level of informal recreational sports participation.;Conclusions. (1) A student's gender does influence the likelihood of participating in intramural and informal recreational sports. (2) Residence location does influence the likelihood of participating in intramural recreational sports and the level of participation in intramural recreational sports. (3) Previous sports participation does influence the likelihood to participate in both intramural and informal recreational sports. (4) Extrinsic and intrinsic motivations influence the level of participation in intramural recreational sports. (5) Intrinsic motivations influence the level of participation in informal recreational sports.