The sport participation development in the Iran's public universities

The objective of this study was evaluation of structrual elements which affect sport participation development in state universities. The research was a descriptive-survey kind of research and the pupulation included all sport experts in universities like managers, coaches, P.E professors, etc. The samples were selected purposefully according to statical sufficiency for modeling (n=328). A researcher-made questionnaire consisted of 72-item Likert scale was used according to explorative semi-guided interview and library studies which included three factors: development infrastructures (4 dimensions), development management (4 dimensions), and sport participation (3 dimensions). After confirmation of content validity by experts, and the reliability by Cronbach's alpha (α=0.96), the data was analyzed by Friedman test and Structural Equation Modeling at level of p≤0.05. The results indicated that the development management factor (4.01± 0.49) is more important than the development infrastructure factor (3.90± 0.51) in sport participation of students. Results of the first and second order factor analysis showed that Measurement model has desirable fitting. Also, according to SEM, develeopment management factor (3.23) and infrastructural development factor (2.69) have direct and significant effect on sport participation development. It seems to universitiy sport management has priority to universitie's development hard and soft infrastructure factors and also suitable management intervention can be increase sport participation of students.