Comparing Adolescents' Levels of Motivation and Sports Participation Concerning Gender and Place of Residence

It is well documented that physically active children have better mental health, accompanied by stronger self–esteem. Furthermore, the odds of developing mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety are lower in them, compared to their inactive counterparts. Particularly, participation in organized sports is associated with greater psychosocial benefits in children and adolescents, compared to individual, unorganized sports types. Moreover, sports participation is among the critical manners to providing biopsychological health. Thus, the identification, prioritization, and classification of the factors affecting sports participation of young individuals to generate a better society are essential. The present study aimed to compare adolescents' levels of motivation and sports participation concerning gender and place of residence.

This was applied research; in terms of data collection, it was a descriptive–comparative study. The sample consisted of 1200 urban and rural first– and second–grade high school students in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran, in the academic year of 2017–2018. Moreover, the study participants were selected by the multistage cluster random sampling method. First, 3 cities were randomly selected from this province. Then, 8 high schools from each city (4 urban girls’ & boys’ schools & 4 rural girls’ & boys’ schools), and 3 classes per school were randomly selected. The inclusion criteria of the study included physical and mental health and no substance dependence. The exclusion criteria included any physical disability based on the student's health records at school. A researcher–made demographic questionnaire was applied to collect the required data on age, gender, place of residence, and participation in extracurricular sports activities. The Sports Motivation Scale (Pelletier et al., 1995) was employed for assessing intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and the lack of motivation among the selected 1006 students (459 girls & 547 boys, rural adolescents: 383; urban adolescents: 623). Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the obtained data in SPSS at the significance level of 0.05.

The MANCOVA results indicated no gender–wise significant difference in motivation components (internal motivation: p=0.202, external motivation: p=0.749, the lack of motivation: p=0.948). However, there was a significant gender–wise difference in sports participation (p=0.001). There was also a significant difference in motivation components between urban and rural students (internal motivation: p=0.048, external motivation: p=0.004, the lack of motivation: p=0.001). However, there was no significant difference between urban and rural students in sports participation (p=0.690).

The current research findings can be a beneficial guide for officials and coaches to better understand the factors affecting motivation and participation in sports in youth. The collected findings suggested that boys are more involved in sports than girls, and urban adolescents are more motivated to exercise than rural adolescents.