The purpose of this study was to investigate the motivation of parents for sending their children to a rugby school and their perception of the potential effects of a rugby school on their children. For this purpose, questionnaires consisted of seventy-one items regarding motivation and seventy-four concerning potentia1 effects were administered to 1314 parents. Then, the Ward method of cluster analysis was applied to the items of motivation and the direct varimax method factor analysis was applied to the items concerning perception of potential effects. Further, the mean and S.D. of factor scores of each cluster group was calculated to analyze the relation between the parents' motivation and their perception. The results can be summarized as follows. 1)The parents' motivation was not related to their children's age, but showed some common tendencies. Most of the parents didn't expect their children to become rugby players, but rather hoped they would develop sports-men-like traits. 2)Regarding the motivation of the parents, four cluster groups were identified. The first group was made up of the parents' expectation placed upon the future of their children. The second was thought to be the tendency of their children's disliking of sports. The third was the resourcefulness and intimacy of the parents with the rugby school. The fourth was considered to be the fondness of their children for playing rugby. 3)Among the potential effects of a rugby school, the effects of improving children's health and also their ability in adjusting to group life were most frequently perceived by the parents. 4)Generally speaking, the structure of the parents' perception of potential effects can be explained by the following three factors: The first factor can be called anticipation for the positive effects in general; The second can be called anticipation in the improvement of adjustment ability to group situation; The third can be called anticipation for the negative effects in general. 5)As to the relationship between the motivation and perception of potential effects, it was found that the positive effects were perceived predominantly with very little perception of negative effects, especially when the children possessed high athletic ability and / or the parents placed high expectation at the time of the children's first enrollment to the rugby school.
