The sport participation motives of wheelchair athletes

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to assess the sport participation motives of wheelchair disabled individuals. In addition, the study sought to establish whether wheelchair disabled athletes are motivated to participate in sport by psychological issues relating to disability.

One hundred and thirty six wheelchair disabled sports participants (108 males and 28 females) with a mean age of 29.92 years who were participating in a range of twenty three sports completed the forty item Sport Participation Reasons questionnaire (SPR) and the Background Information questionnaire. The SPR was based on items taken from the Gill, Gross and Huddleston (1983) Participation Motivation Questionnaire, but also included additional disability related items which were taken from Brasile's (1988b) Participation Reasons Scale and also some items which were based on the literature regarding the psychology of disability and on discussions with people working and participating in the area of disabled sports.

Study participants indicated that their most important motives for sports participation were fun, physical fitness, exercise and challenge. The majority of the additional disability related items were ranked in the middle order, with the highest ranking being at number ten. The top ranked items were similar to findings in previous research.

A factor analysis revealed a nine factor solution, with the factors being labelled Competence, Achievement/Competition, Fitness, Team Orientation, Status, Skills, Tension/Energy Release, Fun/Friendship and Activity. The factor structure was similar to those found in previous research employing the Gill et al (1983) scale, with the exception of the Competence factor which emerged in the present study and contained the majority of the additional disability related items.

It was concluded that sport participation motivation is a multi-dimensional phenomenon and that as well as having participation motives similar to their able-bodied counterparts, wheelchair disabled sports participants also have sport participation motives which are related to psychological aspects of disability. Suggestions are made for directions of future research.