Fritz, Péter [Bio] – Szigeti, Katalin [Bio] – Tóth, Lea Éva [Bio]
(Central-Eastern-Europen Recreation Association – Szeged – Hungary)
Email: PFritz@MOL.hu
Email: szigeti.kata@gmail.com
Email: toth.lea.eva@gmail.com
Abstract
The lack of exercise and sedentary life-style is a characteristic of the contemporary modern society. The inactivity can cause illness. According to the survey of Hungarostudy conducted in 2002 75% of the adults do not go in for sport regularly in Hungary. So it is extremely important to explore the motivations of doing sport, and with the help of the results we can effectively inspire the population to go in for some sport.
In our research we would like to focus only on recreational motivations. The results prove that there is a correlation between the activity in sport and the sex from the flapperdom. On the average the sport inclination of the men is higher than women’s. We also experienced this difference between men and women, but our results show that the age is more determinative than sex.
We noticed that two factors of motivation (the emotional effect and health) stand out from the others. Since our primary aim is to make people go in for sport as young as it is possible, we should mention that (according to our experiences) the most significant motivation for young people is the emotional effect, which is gradually replaces by the health with the advance in age. We made a statistical analysis about the relationship between the dominant motivations and repartition regarding age groups. This analysis proved that this relation mentioned above is significant (Pearson’s chi-square test: p<0,0001).
The target of our research was to represent a more sophisticated view about the sport motivations. In our opinion our results can be a basis of further comprehensive searches about sport motivations. We can extend the investigation to additional factors e.g. settlement, qualification, social status. This factors can influence the sport inclination and the motivation background as well.
We offer our results to the students who would like to find a job in the field of sport and health in the future; to the specialists who fight for the extensive spread of sport; to the institutions and organisations connected to sport activity; and of course to everybody who is interested in the motivation background of sport and recreation.
Introduction
Nowadays health is an important issue. Discourses have been going on about preserving and developing our health both on scientific and everyday grounds. We can also hear and read about the issues through the media. A great number of advertisements sell their ’so-called’ healthy products. This all prove that health is a central issue in more and more people’s lives.
In our project we would like to focus on the results of our research in Szeged and Budapest on recreational motivations to present the scale of physical activity. We believe that with our research we will make people go a step further towards sports and healthy lifestyle.
In our study we examined the motivations of those who do sports on a regular basis. In our opinion, the results of our study not only show the motivations, but also some solutions that can be motivating for those in whose lives sport does not play an active role and can help them make it part and parcel of their lives.
In our study the Institution of Sports Science of Juhász Gyula Teacher Training Faculty, University of Szeged took part. We also included the research project of the Eötvös Loránd University titled ’The role and the importance of recreational training in healthy lifestyle – particularly in connection with motoric and mental fitness’.
This large scale research has been initiated by the State Secretary of Sport of the Ministry of Local Government and is prominently sponsored by the framework of the Researh Network Project.
However, our study is not representative, its results worth studying and it can be a good basis of a more extensive study that covers the whole country.
Literature review
Diseases – chronic, non-infectious, and those caused by sedentary lifestyle – not only can have physical and mental effects on the individuals, but we also should reckon with their social effects. One of the European Union’s brochure defines the connection between health and economical welfare: ’ Health is important for the wellbeing of individuals and society, but a healthy population is also a prerequisite for economic productivity and prosperity.’ (Fehér Könyv – Együtt az egészségért: Stratégiai megközelítés az EU számára 2008-2013, 2007 a)
The European Union’s brochure confirms the correlation between physical activity and health, emphasising that physical activity can prevent the occurence of chronic and non-infectious conditions and also overweight and obesity (Fehér könyv a sportról, 2007 b).
In general we can state (based on the study of Eurobarometer, November, 2004) that 60% of the EU citizens does some kind of sport activity on a regular basis (Fehér Könyv, 2007b). The Hungarian data lag behind the EU data, however, the results of the research on physical activity should be treated critically, because they differ from each other to a large extent. Based on the results of Hungarostudy, 2002, 75% of the Hungarian adult population does not pursue any sport activity on a regular basis (Gémes, 2006). According to the own admisson of the population, 15-20% of the students and 9-12% of the adults do sport. We can accept the estimated data of the Economy Development Researh Institution, 2007, which state that 72,5% of the population above age 15 never does sport, and only the 8% of the whole population does (www.hupe.hu).
In a study of 249 people, Markland and Hardy (1992) examined the motivations for sports. They set apart twelve factors which are the following: stress reduction, weight control, recreation, social acknowledgement, joy, appearance, individual development, managing realationships, illness prevention, competition, fitness and health conservation.
In a Hungarian research four different factors of motivations have been differentiated. These are the following: victory – and competition oriented; physical strength, health and sportsman attitude; extrinsic pressure; and the so-called ’hedonistic’ factor. (Pikó, Pluhár and Keresztes, 2004).
To shape up our own categories of motivations for sports, we took the above mentioned studies as a basis. The categories we formed more or less correspond with the categories of the studies, but there are also some discrepancies. In our opinion, if we seclude ten motivational categories, we get more accurate and more sophisticated results.
Hypotheses
1. Effort to maintain health is in the first place among the aims
2. The age influences sport motivations and priorities between them
3. The type of settlement determines the order of the motivations
Methods
Our study took place in different sport institutions and associations as well as in public places of Szeged and Budapest where people characteristically pursue sport activities. The studied population constitutes of those people who do sports. Our study is based on not a representative but a simple random survey. In Szeged we processed 276 questionnaires which were complemented by the survey of Budapest with 130 other subjects. 45,1% of the subjects was women and 54,9% was men. The age factor of the subjects fluctuates widely. The questionnaire had to be filled in voluntarily which provided a great opportunity to gather a large amount of data.
The questionnarie had three parts. In the first part we asked the subjects the classical demographical questions – like gender and age -, as well as how long they have been doing sports. The second part of the questionnaire included closed questions that were connected to the characteristic features of the partricular sport activity. Through yes/no questions we wanted to explore whether the subjects do individual or team sports, whether they do it in organized or informal circumstances, and finally, whether they pursue sport professionally or as a freetime activity. In the third part we included open questions with which we looked at the motivations for doing sports. In this way, the subjects had the chance to freely come up with their own categories, without limitations and given answers to choose from. Then their task was to rate their motivations according to a scale of importance. The most important motivating factor should have been placed on the first place.
After collecting the data, we analysed them. We formed ten categories and tried to group the motivational answers according to these categories: social relations, emotional impact, health, the effect of sport on the personality, appearance, freetime activity, condition, part of lifestyle, stress reduction, part of job.
Results
70,4% of the subjects pursue sport in their freetime with recreational purpose. Primarily, in our study we focus on this group.
Our main hypothesis was that the most important motivation that inspires people to do sports is the effort to maintain health, however, our hypothesis has not been proven. If we look at the whole survey, emotional impact seems to be the most important factor, also according to sex. As we can see in 1. Figure, the emotional effect stands in the first place among those who do sport with recreational purpose. Health as motivation stands closely in the second place.
1.Figure: Motivations for recreation in Szeged
At the same time if we examine only the first place motivations, we can see on the 2. Figure that the two dominant motivations change place.
2. Figure: First place motivations for recreation in Szeged
We noticed that two factors of motivation (the emotional effect and health) stand out so far from the others, with this object we roundly explored these factors and we experienced an orderly change. The most significant motivation for young people is the emotional effect, which is gradually replaced by the health with the advance in age (3. Figure). We made a statistical analysis about the relationship between the dominant motivations and repartition regarding age groups. This analysis proved that this relation is significant.
3.Figure: Dominant motivations in the different age groups in Szeged
However in the database from Budapest the most dominant motivation is the effort to maintain health no matter whether we look at all motivations or just the first place motivations (Figure 4. and 5.)
4. Figure: Motivations for recreation in Budapest
5. Figure: First place motivations for recreation in Budapest
But if we look the repartition regarding age groups, we can see on the 6. Figure that the first age group is totally missing. Moreover we should mention that the ratio of the two older age group is nearly 83%.
6.Figure: Dominant motivations in the different age groups in Budapest
We executed a tendency test to be able to deduce on the first age group. It was very important that we had to create same sized groups. In this way we could ascertain the tendency of motivations.
As the 7. Figure shows us if we extended the database from Budapest, the graph would follow the schema of database from Szeged. Fundamentally there is no substantial difference between the two settlements. So we can say that the emotional effect becomes weaker and weaker and the effort to maintain health becomes stronger and stronger with the advance in age.
It is very important to take this relationship into consideration, because the childhood behavior influences the adult attitude on a large scale.
7.Figure: The tendency of motivations with the advance in age in Budapest
Discussion
The results of the study support that there is a close relationship between sex and sport activity from puberty. In general, men’s inclination for sport is higher than that of women’s. This difference in gender was also experienced in our results.
The greatest part of the subjects opts for individual sports which clearly shows the tendency towards individual practice in sports (Fehér Könyv, 2007b). There stand social and economical reasons behind this phenomenon, behind the restraint of teamsports (Fritz, 2008).
To what extent do gender and age influence the motivations for sports? Our study has shown that age is a more determining factor than gender. It is well known that the motives of behaviour that have been formed in childhood seem to stay in adulthood. That is why it is extremely important to endear the children early with sports.
Our study has also revealed that the primary motivation for our subject is emotional effect as opposed to the health cult that is conveyed through the society. With the advance of age, health becomes a more important factor.
We have not found any considerable differences between the form of settlement where the subjects live.
Our research goal was to present a more sophisticated view of the motivations for sport activities. We offer the results of our study to those who would like to work in the field of sport and health in the future; to those specialists who fight for the spread of sport widely; to institutions and organisations that deal with sport activity; and of course to everybody who are interested in the motivation background of sport and recreation.
References
Fehér Könyv – Együtt az egészségért (2007a): Stratégiai megközelítés az EU számára 2008-2013.
Fehér könyv a sportról (2007 b): Stratégiai megközelítés az EU számára 2008-2013.
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http://www.hupe.hu/kapcs/mttoe/dl/munk07.pdf
Markland, David – Hardy, Lew. (1993): The exercise motivation inventory: Preliminary
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