The Role of Motivational Factors and Characteristics of Sports Application Software on Knowledge, Attitude, and Participation Sports among Citizens of Golestan Province

 Nowadays, various technologies play an important role in improving the health of people in the society. In the last few years, the use of mobile health technologies such as sports applications has been increasing all over the world. The reasons for using these sports applications and their consequences need further study. Therefore, this research was conducted with the aim of studying the role of motivational factors and features of sports application software on knowledge, attitude and sports participation with regard to the mediating role of the use of sports application software from the perspective of the citizens of Golestan province.

 This correlation research was conducted with the participation of 394 citizens who use sports applications in Golestan province in 2021 by a convenience sampling method. To collect data, we used the questionnaires of motivational factors of using sports applications software Villalobas-Zoniga and Chirobini, characteristics of sports applications of Reynoldsen, sports applications of Chiu, knowledge about Liu, attitude Cheng, and Schmid sports participation. For descriptive and inferential statistics, structural equation method and PLS-3 software were used to analyze the data.

 between motivational factors and the use of sports applications (β=0.194, t=2.665), between the characteristics of sports applications and the use of sports applications (β=0.496, t=6.665), between the use of sports applications and attitude to physical activity (β=0.757, t=40.114) and between the use of sports applications and knowledge about physical activity (β=0.757, t=41.896 ) and finally, between use of the sports application and the sports participation of the citizens of Golestan province were positive significant relationship (β=0.619, t=21.588). The use of sports applications has a mediating role in the relationship between motivational factors, characteristics of sports applications with attitude to physical activity, knowledge about physical activity and sports participation (P<0.001).

 The study showed that the use of sports applications has a positive relationship with a positive attitude towards physical activity, knowledge about physical activity and sports participation of citizens, and also the personal motivations of people and the characteristics of sports applications are effective in choosing these softwares.