The Impact of the SPORTS Participation Motivation of KOREA College Students on Social Support and Social Adaptation

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to provide the basic data for college students towards their healthy participation in sports activities by articulating the relationship between the sports participation motivation, social support and social adaptation of the college students participating in the sports activities. In order to achieve this research objective, college students participating in sports activities at five universities during 2017 were selected as the research subjects by using the systematic stratified cluster random sampling method. The self-administration method was used to prepare the survey questionnaire, and the questionnaire survey was conducted by the researcher visiting the research subjects and explaining the purpose of the research to the participants of the collegiate sports activities. The research subjects responded to the survey on the spot, and the researcher retrieved their responses accordingly. As such, a total of 650 copies were distributed, of which the responses whose details were incomplete or absent were excluded from the analysis. In addition, the statistical method was used to undergo the process to remove the extreme values, and 42 samples were excluded, followed by the selection of 608 people as the final valid samples for the final analysis. The collected data then have undergone frequency analysis, reliability analysis and multiple regression analysis using the SPSS version 21.0 program, and the significance level was examined at the p <.05 level to derive the following conclusions. First, as a result of performing the regression analysis of the impact of the participation motivation of the college students' participation in sports on social support, the motivation subfactors such as health, socialization and recreation seem to have a positive impact on the emotional support. Second, the regression analysis of the participation motivation of the college students' participation in sports showed that health and social factors, which are subfactors of the participation motivation, have a positive impact on adaptation, which is a subfactor of the life adaptation. Third, as a result of analyzing the impact of social support of the college students on the life adaptation, emotional support and information support factors, which are social support facts, have a positive impact on the adaptation factor, which is a subfactor of the life adaptation. The college students' participation in sport is based on physical activity, and they feel emotional bond and form friendly relationship, so that through a good relationship with college students, they could have a sense of community and adapt to their school life. Therefore, the sports participation activities help the college students to grow their health, socialization, and pleasure, among others, thereby raising their ability to adapt to social life as a factor, and the efforts to expand their chances to participate in sports, develop sports programs, and secure facilities will be needed. This study suggests strategic approaches to the sport market by analyzing the effects of sport participants' personality on motivations participated in sport activities and the interrelation of personality, participation motivation and decision factors in purchasing sport products. A total of 737 effective responses over 15 years old, living in the capital city in Korea were chosen by using convenience sampling technique. The data were analyzed using SPSS 20 and Amos 20. The personality of sport and leisure participants seems to have a positive effect on introverted motives for participation in sport activities. In addition, their personalities have a positive effect on extroverted motives for participation in sport activities. Sport and leisure participants' personalities also have a positive effect on product factor and have a positive effect on the image factor in purchasing sport products. On the other hand, sport leisure participants' personalities do not seem to have a positive effect on external factors in purchasing sport products directly. It was also found that sport leisure participants' introverted motives do not affect the product factor in purchasing sport products positively. Similarly, sport leisure participants' introverted motives do not affect image factor in purchasing sport products. In addition, their introverted motives do not affect external factors in purchasing sport products. Sport and leisure participants' extroverted motives also do not seem to affect the product factor or the image factor in purchasing sport products. However, extroverted motives affect the product factor in purchasing sport products positively. Through the study, it is possible to see the potential value of sport activities in the sport market. Further study on the interrelationship between various personalities of sports and leisure consumers and the decision factors in their purchases is expected to be helpful for leading consumer market in sport industry.