A Systematic Review of Motivation to Participate in Competitive Sport among Athletes

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Wadee A Alkuhaili, Zainal Abidin bin Zainuddin, Zainudin Bin Abu Bakar

Abstract

The purpose of this review is to identify gaps and trends of competitive sport motivation and how previous literatures studied this topic to improve the motivation in competitive sport environment using the theory of planned behavior. The review design is a narrative review. The method applied in this study is to review four different databases, using keyword search related to the topic, theoretical framework and factors related to sport participation. The result is summarised to 26studieswith 12,317 participants, with an age rangefrom11 – 21 years old which include the use of TPB but in different aspects of sport. However, some studies did not use TPB as framework but instead used variables that are related to the theory of planned behavior, such as influence of coaches, parents, and peers in youth athlete sport. They used quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method approaches.


The finding indicated that TPB is one of the most important theoretical frameworks to investigate sport participation behavior and how it affects the motives of athletes to continue their participation. However, there are many factors that enhance sport participation, such as supportive environment created by important others (Coaches, parents, and peers); furthermore, control that prevent athletes are also important factors to study and identify the obstacles that hold athletes from continuing to participate in sport particularly the obstacles that is not under athletes’ control.

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