Structural Equation Modeling of the Role of National Team Performance in University Students’ National Identity

In our world today, sport has attracted the attention of sociologists and sport managers as one of the key elements of identity. This study evaluated the overall performance of the team using a researcher-made questionnaire and assessed the national team's performance model on national identity components in university students by the National Identity Questionnaire of Bagdono (2011) and the researcher-made sport watching questionnaire. After the face and content validity of the questionnaires were confirmed using professors’ viewpoints, their reliabilities were obtained as 0.72 and 0.91 respectively using Cronbach's alpha method. The statistical population consisted of all Iranian students and 317 students were selected as the sample from universities of Iran through multistage cluster sampling method. Structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses. The results indicated that the model had a good fit. Also, the results showed that the national team's performance affected all aspects of national identity (cognitive awareness, general and personal assessment, independence, behavioral participation and self-linkage). In the meantime, the national team's performance had the most effect on the general assessment and the lowest effect on the cognitive awareness. Therefore, it is necessary to pay special attention to the performance of national teams as an important factor influencing national identity.