Survey of the physical activity motives among Iranian academic community

Recognizing sport and physical activity motives among different groups and communities will help planners to assume necessary measures in order to remove the barriers and motivate people doing physical activities. Hence, the purpose of this survey was to investigate the physical activity motives among Iranian academic community in order to develop sport for all at the universities and present a proper model. This survey was descriptive and a sample consisting of the university academics, staff and students across Iranian national universities (n=779) answered a questionnaire developed by the researcher on physical activity motives. Collected data by the 30-items physical activity motives questionnaire analyzed using the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and 29 items with appropriate factor loading were classified in five factors namely progress & achievement, physiological advantages, social interactions, interest to physical activity, and health & wellness. Conducting confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), progress & achievement had most relationship with physical activity motives (loading=0.92). Social interactions having least loading (0.68) stood at the last order. It seems that, familiarity of the universities’ sports officials with the motivational factors recognized in this study, could prepare the way for the utilization of the proper measures in order to motivate Iranian academic community to do physical activities and their sport participation and also cause the proper redirecting financial resources in this area.