Date

2007

Author

Özesen, U Emrah

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In the last decade outdoor and recreational activities hence white-water rafting gained more attention in the sport market. According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey, every year around 600.000 local and foreigner people are purchasing and participating in the white-water rafting activity as outdoor and recreational consumers. However, there has been little research done on outdoor and recreational sports participants. In particular, the reason why consumers participate in outdoor and recreational activities has not been investigated in the local market although the number of participants is rapidly extending. Since motivation and decision making behavior is a significant determinant of sport. participation, it is essential for the sport marketers to understand and evaluate psychological needs and motivations of outdoor sport participants. The purpose of this study is to analyze motivational factors of individuals as consumers who become involved in a daily rafting trip as an outdoor and recreational sport. The current research has been modified and applied from the survey of motivations of the sport consumer which was developed by McDonald and Milne (1999). The original instrument includes 43 items which represent 13 motivation factors. The survey questionnaire attempts to define and portray the Turkish white-water rafting consumers by analyzing the thirteen constructs on 517 white-water rafting trip participants and adapt the Milne & McDonald’s (1999) Motivation of the Sport Consumer Scale to Turkish culture by examining Turkish outdoor and recreational sport consumers in the case of a daily white water rafting rafting trip. To determine the dimensional structure of the items chosen and to assess the adequacy of motivational factors of the rafting consumers, data were subjected to exploratory factor analysis. Maximum Likelihood factor method was used to extract possible factors, followed by an oblique rotation to identify stable factor loadings for each item. Results of the exploratory factor analysis indicated the existence of a nine dimensions, (Self actualization & self esteem, aggression, physical fitness, social facilitation, achievement & competition, stress release, affiliation & aesthetics, risk taking, value development) in 43-item, scale that accounted for 56.654% of the common variance. According to the results of the second factor analysis generated to define the 4 sub factors , the first factor that labeled as ‘Mental well being needs’ was defining the 26.131 % of the common variance. The second factor ‘Sport based needs’ was defining the 6.569 % of the common variance. The third factor which was including only the ‘physical fitness’ construct; defined the 6.523 % of the common variance and labeled as Fitness needs. Finally the fourth factor which was labeled as social well being needs defined the 5.116 % of the common variance and contained the social facilitation and affiliation constructs.

Subject Keywords

General social sciences., Sport.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12609143/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/17398

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis