Sport Commitment among Malaysian Racquet Sports Athletes

Background: The Sport Commitment Model is widely used to understand the motivation and commitment of athletes to continue playing sports. However, the factors influencing athletes’ commitment to racquet sports have not received much research attention, especially in Malaysia. Purpose: This study aims to use the Sport Commitment Questionnaire-2 (SCQ-2) to examine Malaysian athletes’ commitment to racquet sports.
Methods: A total of 612 athletes (367 males/245 females, μ age= 30.32 ± 11.56) completed the SCQ-2, which measures seven factors and two dimensions of sport commitment.
Results: The results revealed that sport enjoyment was the main factor contributing to the athletes’ commitment in all sports. Two-way ANOVA analyses showed significant differences in athletes’ enthusiastic commitment [F(_3,604) = 44.92, P = 0.00] and constrained commitment [F_(3,604) = 15.32, P = 0.00] across four sports. There were also significant differences in both enthusiastic commitment [F(_3,604) = 7.53, P = 0.00] and constraint commitment [F(_3,604) = 18.82, P = 0.00] across age groups.
Conclusion: Enjoyment is the main factor in sport commitment. Tennis athletes possess the highest level of enthusiastic commitment across all the racquet sports. Moreover, male athletes showed higher levels of enthusiastic commitment than female athletes.

Keywords
constrained commitment; enthusiastic commitment; racquet sports; sport commitment; Sport Commitment Model; sport psychology