A Cross-Cultural Study of the Motivational Factors Affecting Individuals’ Decisions about Participating in Action Sports between Korean College Students and

Their American Counterparts

S. Roger Park (Saint Leo University, USA)

Abstract The purpose of the study was to examine if there existed significant differences on the motivational

factors affecting individuals’ decisions about participating in action sports between Korean college

students and their American counterparts. Four hundred ninety-two action sports participants completed

the survey. Of 492 research participants, 275 (55.9%) were Koreans and 212 (43.1%) were Americans

with 5 (1%) missing data. The results of MANOVA revealed that American college students had higher

levels of participant motivations than their Korean counterparts, including achievement/status-oriented,

team-oriented, fitness-oriented, energy release-oriented, miscellaneous reason-oriented, skill

development-oriented, friendship-oriented, and fun-oriented, above and beyond what gender, educational

level, skill level, and the average number of days of participating in action sports explained.

Introduction The booming action sports interest has become a worldwide phenomenon. Inline skaters, skateboarders,

and BMX riders were estimated at 150 million participants worldwide, and these main three sports have

shown a 700% increase in growth over the past 12 years, with a 30% growth in participants each year

(LG Mobile Phones, 2003). Professional action sports athletes were estimated at 30,000 people globally

(Liberman, 2004). Action sports fans could be found everywhere. A greater number of people have been

showing an interest in action sports, and they should no longer be considered a niche market of sport

business industry.

Sports scholars have shown an increased interest in the area of extreme sports in the past decade and they

have applied the motivation and personality theories into extreme sports participants. However, most of

these researchers focused only on the traditional extreme sports such as hang-gliding, kayaking, and rock

climbing (Doka, Schwarz, & Schwarz, 1990; Shoham, Rose, & Kahle, 1998) excluding action sports such

as inline skating, skateboarding, and/or snowboarding. In addition, little research has been done with

regard to the motivational factors affecting individuals’ decisions about participating in action sports

comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences between American action sports participants

and their Korean counterparts.

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Review of Literature Cross-Cultural Studies in General A number of research studies support that cultural effect is one of the important factors to explain a

certain pattern of individual thought and behavior from the psychological aspects. Yi and Park (2003)

found that people with different cultural backgrounds were more likely to have different attitudes and

styles of decision making in negotiation, bargaining processes, and problem solving in various social

settings because value systems differed.

Prior work suggests that the psychological results do not always translate when cultures were so different.

Stevenson and Stigler (1992) examined, for example,

that there was more belief in malleable intelligence and in the importance of effort among those in the

Asian culture than in the American culture when they compared the achievement beliefs of Asian and

American school children and their parents.

Bracken and Barona (1991) mentioned that obvious cultural influences included beliefs, customs, values,

degree of acculturation of assimilation, and generational status of the individual. Furnham, McClelland,

and Omer (2003) examined whether ratings of attractiveness and related attributes were indeed pan-

cultural, as evolutionary psychologists have suggested, or cultural-specific as some studies have

suggested (Furnham & Alibhai, 1983; Furnham & Baguma, 1994; Zebrowitz et al., 1993).

From the perspective of business, a cross-cultural study would still make many contributions to the

understanding of the international or multinational business market. Luo, Hoek, and Roos (2001)

identified that the ability to effectively manage logistics in a cross-cultural context has become one of the

crucial success factors in today’s business world in the face of ever-increasing globalization. In addition,

they insisted that cross-cultural logistics research could have the benefit of applying the experience

learned in cross-cultural research, in general, and through cross-cultural research in management and

marketing, through international business.

Cross-Cultural Studies in the Context of Sport Despite the fact that more and more researchers and marketers all over the world have become interested

in cross-cultural studies, relatively few cross-cultural studies exist. Kriska (2000) studied the ethnic and

cultural issues in assessing physical activity and explained the substantial differences in the distribution of

both chronic diseases and inactivity among the various segments of the population.

“Not Just a Game” (1998) showed that people in various regions enjoy a variety of sports while

explaining the worldwide popularity of sporting events and estimating a television audience for the FIFA

World Cup Soccer in 1998, 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, Rugby World Cup, two Formula One

automobile-racing seasons, and American football. Concerning the two countries of Korea and the United

States, “Not Just a Game” (1998) indicated that the Korean people were more likely to enjoy baseball

than any other sports, while the American people were more willing to enjoy football.

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Sport Participant Motivation Gill, Gross, and Huddleston (1983) attempted to measure the sport participants’ motivations for youth.

They created eight motivation factors of sport participation. The initial study showed that the most

important reasons for participating were to improve skills, have fun, learn new skills, be challenged, and

be physically fit (Gill, 2000). Several others used this measure, or a modification, with other youth sport

samples (Gould, Feltz, & Weiss, 1985; Klint & Weiss, 1986; Passer, 1988; Wankel & Kreisel, 1985), and

the results were consistent in several ways. Weiss and Chaumeton (1992) cited three common threads.

First, several factor analyses yielded consistent factors, including competence, fitness, affiliation, team

aspects, competition, and fun. Second, children and adolescents typically indicated that several motives

were important. Third, there were minimal age, gender, experience, and sport activity differences.

Dwyer (1992) sampled university students using a 5-point response format to examine the measure’s

internal structure. His resulting 6-factor structure (team orientation, achievement/status, fitness, friendship,

skill development, and fun/excitement/challenge) was similar to the results with youth samples, and all

subscales were internally consistent. The important motives for participating were to (a) maintain fitness;

(b) experience fun, excitement, and challenge; and (c) acquire and improve skills–findings consistent with

the youth literature (Gill et al., 1983; Gould et al., 1985; Klint & Weiss, 1987). The least important

reasons were friendship-oriented, achievement/status-oriented, and team-oriented factor; these vary from

the results with youth.

Instrument Translation and Back-Translation The instrument translation needs to be loyal to the original context of the source instrument, and it should

also reflect a cultural understanding of the target language (Bracken & Barona, 1991). Bracken and

Barona (1991) mentioned that the following common translation techniques as (a) interpreters, (b) direct

translation, (c) bilingual translation, (d) committee, (e) field-testing, and (f) back-translation.

The most commonly applied technique is the back-translation technique. The advantage of the back-

translation technique is that it offers the opportunity for revisions to enhance the reliability and accuracy

of the translated instrument (Bracken & Barona, 1991; Geisinger, 1994; Van de Vijver & Hambleton,

1996; Van de Vijver & Leung, 2001). Therefore, the back-translation technique was utilized to obtain

consistency by comparing both the Korean and English instrument versions.

Researchers have identified the concerns of translating and adapting an instrument from one language to

another (Geisinger, 1994; Hui & Traindis, 1985; Van de Vijver & Hambleton, 1996). Brislin (1980)

proposed methods, such as back-translation, bilingual, committee, decentering, and pretests.

The instruments developed for this current study were translated from the English to the Korean version

by concept instead of translating word by word; this is more desirable because the translated items are

more meaningful to the Korean population (Geisinger, 1994).

Methodology Participant Motivations Questionnaire (PMQ)

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Participation Motivations Questionnaire (PMQ) (Gill, Gross, & Huddleston, 1983) was used as the

research instrument. A 30-item instrument was rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly

disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The research instrument consisted of eight dimensions of

achievement/status with six items, team-oriented reasons with three items, fitness-oriented reasons with

three items, energy release with five items, miscellaneous reasons with three items, skill development

with three items, friendships with four items, and fun with three items. The item responses were summed

within each sub-dimension to create eight dimensions. The reliabilities of the sub-dimensions

were .95, .94, .97, .95, .84, .94, .93, and .95, respectively. The reliability of the eight dimensions was .98.

The validity of this instrument was reconfirmed for the current sample.

Demographics A demographic questionnaire was developed for this study to obtain information concerning personal

characteristics, such as gender, educational level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, or graduate, etc),

skill level, age, nationality, and the average number of days of participating in action sports.

Translation and Back-Translation There were four steps used in the process of translation and adaptation using the back-translation and

bilingual committee methods. Three bilingual committees were selected and they had a minimum of

undergraduate degree in the English speaking countries. The first bilingual committee translated the

original English version of the instrument into the Korean version (Brislin, 1980). The second bilingual

committee back-translated the Korean version into the English version, and the third bilingual committee

compared the two English versions. Finally, all three bilingual committees discussed the final version of

the instrument.

Participants Four-hundred ninety-two action sports participants, who were going to 4-year colleges and universities in

Kyunggi province in Korea and in the state of Colorado, completed the survey. Data were collected

between December 2004 and January 2005 for Korean subjects and between January 2005 and February

2005 for their American counterparts. Of 492 action sports participants, 275 (55.9%) were Koreans and

212 (43.1%) were Americans while 5 (1%) subjects did not disclose their nationality. The research

participants averaged 3.20 (SD = 2.09 days) days of participating in action sports per year. The skill levels

of the research participants were beginner (35.4%), intermediate level (33.7%), high level (19.1%),

professional level (3.0%), and other (1.4%) with 7.3% missing data. In addition, 383 (77.8%) were males

and 101 (20.5%) were females while 8 (1.6%) did not answer their gender. The current research

participants ranged in age from 18 to 34 years old (M = 23.67, SD = 2.90). The education levels of current

research participants were graduate students (7.9%), senior (10.2%), junior (34.3%), sophomore (28.3%),

freshman (13.2%), and other (4.5%) with 1.6% missing data.

Data Normality Test of multivariate data normality was conducted on the research instruments. The main reason for

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conducting the normality test was because the data normality would affect the results of statistical

procedures (Pedhazur & Schmelkin, 1991; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). Usually, MANOVA is required to

satisfy the assumption of data normality, which means that the observed variables need to be normally

distributed (Gravetter & Wallnau, 2000). According to Mardia’s (1985) suggestions, a skewness or

kurtosis value of a variable or an item greater than 2 or smaller than -2 is considered non-normally

distributed. Based on the results of Mardia’s (1985) multivariate normality test, all valuables did fit the

assumed distribution of multivariate.

In addition, Tabachnick and Fidell (2001) mentioned that sampling distributions of means are normally

distributed regardless of the distributions of variables with at least 20 degrees of freedom on the basis of

The Central Limit Theorem. Based on The Central Limit Theorem, the normality has been met because

each group had more than 20 degrees of freedom. Table 1 shows the mean, standard deviation, and

parameters of skewness and kurtosis of the variables for MANOVA for the current sample.

The internal consistency for the current research participants estimated by Cronbach’s alphas of

achievement/status-oriented motivation, team-oriented motivation,

fitness-oriented motivation, energy release-oriented motivation, miscellaneous-oriented motivation, skill

development-oriented motivation, friendship-oriented motivation, and fun-oriented motivation

were .77, .85, .77, .76, .58, .80, .71, and 75, respectively.

Table 1

Mean, Standard Deviation, and Parameters of Skewness and Kurtosis for MANOVA (N = 475)

Variable M SD Skewness Kurtosis

Age 23.67 2.90 .05 .22

Achievement/Status 18.63 4.57 -.09 .04

Fun 11.69 2.53 -.60 -.02

Friendship 14.13 3.13 -.34 .13

Miscellaneous 8.38 .05 .21 .18

Fitness 11.43 .54 .07 .23

Skill 10.87 2.89 -.58 -.26

Team 9.35 2.79 -.06 -.23

Energy 17.14 3.87 -.29 .18

Note. Judgments were made on 5-point scales

(1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree).

Results MANOVA was utilized to test if the motivational factors affecting individuals’ decisions about

participating in action sports were different by nationality after blocking the variables of gender,

educational level, skill level, and the average number of days of participating in action sports. The

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purpose of using blocking variables in MANOVA was to control the effects of educational level, skill

level, and the average number of days of participating in action sports.

MANOVA was performed on eight dependent variables (DVs): achievement/status oriented, team-

oriented, fitness-oriented, miscellaneous-oriented, friendship-oriented, fun-oriented, skill development-

oriented, and energy release-oriented motivations. Independent variable was nationality (Korean and

American action sports participants) with blocking independent variables (IVs) of gender, educational

level, skill level, and the frequency of participating in action sports. Order of entry of blocking variables

was gender, educational level, skill level, and the frequency of participating in action sports.

It was critical to block the effects of those variables because the significant differences of DV, the

motivational factors affecting individuals’ decisions about participating in action sports, might bring

about by blocking variables not by necessarily nationality. The variable blocking was used basically to

control the effects of gender, educational level, skill level, and the average number of days of

participating in action sports on DV. Total N of 492 was reduced to 433 with the deletion of a case

missing a score on IV and DVs.

Tabachnick and Fidell (2001) referred to MANOVA as wasteful if DVs are very highly and positively

correlated as well as if DVs are uncorrelated. In order to examine the linear relationship among the DVs,

Pearson correlation has been conducted (see Table 2). On the basis of interrelations among the DVs, they

were moderately correlated in positive direction (from .38 to .71).

Table 2

The Interrelations among the Continuous Variables (N = 479)

Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Achievement 1 .52*** .51*** .65*** .64*** .56*** .62*** .59*** 2. Team 1 .48*** .45*** .47*** .38*** .45*** .51*** 3. Fitness 1 .52*** .51*** .58*** .59*** .63*** 4. Miscellaneous 1 .45*** .47*** .48*** .52*** 5. Friendship 1 .53*** .59*** .60*** 6. Fun 1 .71*** .64*** 7. Skill 1 .57*** 8. Energy 1

***p < .001.

Based on the results of MANOVA, there was a significant difference on all eight motivational factors

affecting individuals’ decisions about participating in action sports for Korean and American action sports

participants by nationality (F(8, 408) = 13.17, p < .001; η2 = .79) after blocking the variables of gender,

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educational level, skill level, and the average number of days of participating in action sports. In other

words, nationality explained the significant differences on the motivational factors affecting individuals’

decisions about participating in action sports above and beyond what the gender, educational level, skill

level, and the average number of days of participating in action sports explained. This revealed that

nationality was a significant variable to differentiate the motivational factors affecting individual’s

decisions about participating in action sports for Korean and American action sports participants. Table 3

provides means and standard deviations of nationality for Korean and American action sports participants.

Table 3

Means and Standard Deviations of Nationality for the Motivational Factors Affecting Individuals’

Decisions about Participating in Action Sports between Korean Action Sports Participants and Their

American Counterparts (N = 433)

Korean American

Variable M SD M SD

Achievement/Status 17.60 4.06 20.12 4.74

Team-Oriented 9.03 2.42 9.81 3.14

Fitness-Oriented 10.30 2.16 12.99 2.18

Miscellaneous 7.92 2.00 8.99 2.67

Friendship 12.67 2.54 12.67 2.68

Fun-Oriented 10.35 2.13 13.51 1.67

Skill Development 9.66 2.75 12.54 2.13

Energy Release 15.44 3.41 19.42 3.15

Discussion American action sports participants had significantly higher levels of motivational factors affecting

individuals’ decisions about participating in action sports, including achievement/status-oriented, team-

oriented, fitness-oriented, friendship-oriented, fun-oriented, miscellaneous-oriented, energy release-

oriented, and skill development-oriented, than their Korean counterparts. In other words, the cultural

diversity was a critical factor to differentiate the motivational factors.

Limitations The first and utmost limitation of this dissertation is the generalizability of the results. This current study

adopted a convenient sampling method due to the difficulty in obtaining college action sports participants

both in the state of Colorado and in Kyunggi province in Korea. Therefore, it should be careful when

generalizing the results of this study. More specifically, the results of this current study might not be

generalized beyond the population of college students, who are going to skate parks in the state of

Colorado and in Kyunggi province in Korea. However, the study still added more information in the

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understanding of globalization of action sports to the existing literature.

Implementation Action sports consumers are diverse in terms of demographics and psychographics in different consumer

markets. However, eight motivations such as achievement/status, team-oriented, fitness-oriented,

miscellaneous, friendship, fun-oriented, skill development-oriented, and energy release-oriented can be

used as common motivational factors to identify why people enjoy action sports in Korea and in the USA.

Recommendations for Future Study This current study opened the door for the action sports researchers and business managers to conduct

multinational-comparison study to identify the motivational factors affecting individuals’ decisions about

participating in action sports. More and more international levels of action sports events have been born

all over in the world. Therefore, it is expected to see more multi-national and/or multi-cultural studies in

the area of the action sports industry.

Third, quantitative research methodology was beneficial for conducting a cross-cultural study comparing

and contrasting the motivational factors between Korean and American action sports participants.

However, for future studies, qualitative research methods, including interviewing, would be of use in

analyzing the personality of action sports participants because of that methods’ propensity to dig deep into

personality from the psychological perspective.

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