The Relationship between Participation Motives and Sport Commitment in Disabled Athletes

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between sport participation motives and sport commitment in disabled athletes. The population consisted of all disabled athletes participating in national championship track and field tournament (N= 250) and 122 athletes were randomly selected as the sample. Demographic characteristics, Sport Participation Motives (Gill et al., 1983) and Sport Commitment (Scanlan et al., 1993) were used to collect data. Pearson correlation coefficient, multiple regression, independent t test were used to analyze data and structural equation modeling was applied to determine the relationships of variable within the casual framework. The results showed a significant and positive relationship between all subscales of sport participation motives and sport commitment. 'Fitness and health' and 'popularity' motives were the most powerful predictors of sport commitment. Also, sport participation motives had a positive and significant effect on sport commitment and could predict 34% of sport commitment variance. The model showed a good fit to the data. Totally, the results stated that officials and coaches should pay more attention to motives of the disabled, particularly health motive in order to strengthen their sport commitment.