| Electronic Sports (e-Sports) are becoming increasingly popular and having a significant impact among young generation in the world. While marketing professionals from the eastern countries like China and Korea have been successful in developing sport gaming business, the industry in the North America is still young and faces challenge of popularity of the games. Previous studies in the western countries on e-Sports have primarily been focused on the motivations for playing e-Sports, market needs and social impacts. Very little attention has been paid to the questions how students in western countries perceive e-Sports, what discrepant opinions toward e-Sports and how to assess perceptual differences of e-Sports participants. As e-Sports have started to gain their popularity on campus in western countries, a factor analysis on perceptual differences of s-Sports among the participants becomes essential.The purpose of this study was two-fold:(a) to develop an instrument to measure perceptual differences of university students for e-Sports; and (b) to explore different perceptions toward e-Sports between different groups of university students. To explore the research questions, a survey instrument entitled the Inventory of Perception for E-Sports (IPES) was first developed through the stages of literature review, factor analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and content validation and factor reliability. The instrument included a total of23items which was categorized into the factors of Attraction, Economics, Recognition, Socialization, and Technique. All items were measured using7-point Likert scale ranging from (1) strongly disagrees to (7) strongly agree and a paper-and-pencil based survey was applied to this study. The survey packages contained a demographic information sheet and the IPES.The packages were distributed to students from three universities in Delaware State in the east coast of America ranging from18to35years old. The completed surveys (N=377; male=176, female=201) were then selected and analyzed in Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) with SPSS19.0. Alpha.05and factor loading (FL).50were set forth in EFA for eliminating the items with FL lower than.50. The remaining19items were tested in Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using AMOS17.0. The revealed fit indices (χ2/df=3.92, RMSEA=.08, SRMR=.05, AGFI=.81, CFI=.89)(Hair et al.,2010) indicated that the model of IPES fit the data with acceptable content and construct validities. The internal consistency reliabilities for the five factors ranging from.66to.89with average.72were satisfactory. Analyses of Variance were performed to test significant difference between different gender, race and level of involvement on the five factors. The results indicate that there were significant differences between theses three variables.The result shows that the perception level of university students in American is generally low and the differences are widely existed; university students have not formed proper perspectives toward e-Sports; there are significant differences in e-Sports perceptions among different groups of university students. Based on the research results, the study suggested that:(1) e-Sports should be applied to higher education and a scientific cultivating system is supposed to be built in order to foster the development of e-Sports;(2) The e-Sports industry should be combined with the media, and public opinions toward e-Sports need to guided properly;(3) Relative governance department and professional organizations should provide strong support to e-Sports industry;(4) Enhance the diversity of the game development teams, and make effort to develop e-Sports games that meet the needs of female consumers; Attach great importance to the users culture and strengthen the international cultural exchanges and cooperation. |
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