Developing strategies of "Sport for All" in Iran Universities

Recognizing factors affecting the development of sport for all such as motivations and barriers of sport participation will help planners to remove barriers by the proper measures. So، the purpose of present research was to investigate physical activity barriers among Iranian academic society (faculties، staff and students) to provide sport for all development strategies in the Iranian universities. This field research was Descriptive–analytical and its statistical population was all of Iranian national universities’ faculties، staff and students. Finally، 779 people (233 faculties، 224 staff and 322 students) participated in the research and completed physical activity barriers’ questionnaire. The questionnaire was five-point likert-type scale that consist of 66 items and its face and content validity verified by the experts and its reliability was calculated in a pilot study using Cronbach''s alpha (α=0. 956). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with a Varimax rotation was used to identify factors and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to confirm factors and presenting model. In EFA، of the 66 barriers، 58 items having appropriate factor loading were stand in six factors namely organizational and managerial، environmental، psychological، interpersonal، Lack of social support and time limitations. CFA results showed that «Lack of social support» and «organizational and managerial» also factors had most effect in explanation of the barriers of sport participation (0. 83، 0. 79). Paying attention to barriers identified in the present research and trying to remove them can cause to mass participation of the academic society in universities’ physical activity and sport for all programs. In addition، in this research، based on identified barriers، some strategies were presented in order to development of sport for all in universities.