Author(s): Ritu Girish and Akshaya Periasamy

Abstract:
Motivation is a key element for performance and success among athletes. While earlier research indicates that sport participation contributed a sense of competence, delay in the effects of disability as well as a social outlet for disabled-individuals (Page, Connor & Peterson, 2001), it has also shown that players with and without disability did not differ significantly with respect to sport motivation (Perreault & Vallerand, 2007). There seems to be a positive impact of sports on the motivation level of people irrespective of the status of ability/disability. This proves to be a positive impact of sports as it goes against the common belief that physical disability reduces one's self-esteem and motivation. This study aimed to compensate for the lack of such studies in India and compare the level of sports motivation between differently abled athletes and abled-athletes. The study also aimed at bringing to light the gender differences in sports motivation across the groups. The sample consisted of 30 able and 30 differently abled athletes currently residing in Bengaluru, India. Sports Motivation Scale-6 (Mallet et al., 2007) was administered on the sample, and the data was correlated statistically using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 20). The results indicate that there are no significant differences between able and differently abled athletes, in all the domains of motivation except for Identified Regulation (p>0.05) which reflects with the findings from the west. Gender differences were found to be significant only for able-athletes for total motivation and the domain of Introjected Regulation (p>0.05). The study implies that sports has a unanimous and positive influence on the motivation of athletes collectively and doesn't vary with physical disability. Further research is recommended to study the gender differences prevailing and their contributing factors among the able athlete group.

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