Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to determine the sport participation motives of the elementary school male students in school teams from town around the city of Ankara.and also evaluate the differences in motivation scores among different sport branches. Total of 200 students ( age= 13.62 ± 0.51) from 20 different elementary school participated voluntarily to this study (n6th grade: 73, n7th grade: 45, n8th grade: 82). “Participation Motivation Questionnaire (PMQ)” that consisted of 30 possible motives for participating in sports and included 8 subscales was used to collect data. Internal consistency reliability analysis was performed by Oyar et al 18 and Cronbach Alpha was 0.87 for male. MANOVA was utilized to test differences between their participation motivations by sport branches. In addition, means and standard deviations of the data were computed. “Skill Development” and “Competition” were found as the most considerable reasons for sport participation to all sport branches in the study. “Fitness/Energy Release”, “Achievement/Status” and “Fun” were found less considerable motives for sport participation in the study. Significant differences was found between motivation scores related to “Team Affiliation/Spirit” subscale and sport branches (p< 0.05). According to Tukey results, significant differences was found between soccer-basketball and basketball-volleyball sport branches (p< 0.05). Since exercise and sports participation help individuals to reduce the risk of many physical, psychological, and social problems, the most important motives for sport participation of children should be determined and the exercise and sports programs should be prepared by considering these motives.