دوافع ممارسة طلاب الجامعة للأنشطة الرياضية وفقا لنظرية التقرير الذاتي

 Background: The presentstudy investigated exercise participation behavior and its motives among SultanQaboos university students. Self-Determination Theory was used to investigatethe relationship between these motives and the actual exercise behavior.

Methods: The studysample consisted of 263 students from the Faculty of Education at Sultan QaboosUniversity (129 male and 134 female). The participants completed twoquestionnaires, an Exercise Behavior Questionnaire which was developedspecifically for this study, and an Arabic version of the Exercise MotivationInventory version 2 (EMI-2), which was developed by Markland & Ingledew(1997).

Results: Descriptivestatistics showed that 20 % of male students and 77%  of female students don’t participate at allin any sport and exercise activities; 45% of the male students and 21% of thefemale students participate moderately in sport and exercise activities ( 2-3times a week), while 35% of the male students and 2% of the female studentsparticipate intensively in sport and exercise activities (almost on dailybasis). Analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated that intrinsic motives forexercise behavior (challenge, revitalization, health, affiliation andenjoyment) were more common among the male participants than their femalecounterparts. The results also showed that for the female participants, whowere classified as physically active, extrinsic motivations (ill-healthavoidance, positive health, revitalization, weight management, and appearance)were the major driving force for their exercise behavior.

Conclusions: In general, thestudy showed that while intrinsic motivations play an important role inincreasing exercise behavior, extrinsic motivations such as appearance andweight management are especially important predictors of female students’participation in sport and exercise activities. Results of the current studyprovide support for the application of the Self-Determination theory within theArab context.