Abstract
The present study was to explore the sociological and psychological factors which influence on the competitive motivation of members in the competitive sport club. The subjects were 233 university students in the course of sport and physical education which enrolled in competitive sport clubs. They were asked to answer a questionnaire which contained items on competitive motivation, sport performance, interpersonal relationships with coach and club members, interpersonal relationships in daily life, part-time job, academic performance and future job decision. In this study, the competitive motivation was defined by two measures; ‘athletic burnout’ as a state of decreasing motivation and ‘commitment to training’ as a state of increasing motivation. The result of a correlation analysis among those factors suggested as follows;
1) The decrease of competitive motivation was triggered by drop in athletic performance or serious physical injury, and was directly related to the interpersonal relationships with the coach and the members in addition to the personal variables such as the neurotic personality and the maladaptiveness to the injury.
2) Although the interpersonal relationships within the club affected the member's competitive motivation, the close relationships with the club members related more to inhibiting the athletic burnout tendency, while the positive relationships with the club coach related more to enhancing the member's commitment to training.
3) The factors, except for the club-related variables influenced on the motivation, were the member's positive thoughts that life environments such as romantic involvement with the opposite sex and part-time jobs do not have bad effects on the competitive activities, and the active efforts to get a future job. Especially the latter positively related to the engagement on the academic performance as well as the commitment to training.
