Examination of the Difficulties and Motivations of Physically Disabled Athletes in Front of Participation in Sports

The aim of this study is to examine the difficulties and motivations of physically disabled athletes in participating in sports. A total of 114 male athletes, 46 of whom were national athletes, with an average age of 31.16 ± 11.96, who were engaged in individual and team sports, participated in the study. In order to collect data in the study, the Difficulties in Participation in Sports in Disabled Individuals Scale, the validity and reliability study of which was conducted by Yılmaz et al. (2021), x and the Motivation for Participation in Sports in Disabled Individuals Scale, the validity and reliability study of which was conducted by Tekkurşun-Demir et al. (2018), were used. In the analysis of the data, in addition to descriptive statistics, the skewness and kurtosis values of the data were examined and it was determined that the data set did not conform to normal distribution. For this reason, Mann–Whitney U Test, Kruskal–Wallis Test, and Spearman Correlation Test techniques were used in the analysis of the data. According to the findings, it was found that there was a negative significant relationship between the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation sub-dimensions of the motivation to participate in sports in disabled individuals scale and the difficulties in participating in sports in disabled individuals scale, while there was a positive significant relationship between amotivation and the difficulties in participating in sports scale sub-dimensions. No significant differences were found in the sub-dimensions of the scales according to the athletes' nationality, age, sports years, and branches. As a result, it can be said that increasing the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of disabled athletes reduces the difficulties in participating in sports, while lack of motivation increases the difficulties. In addition, according to the results obtained, it was determined that neither the age nor the branch of disabled individuals made any difference in their motivation to participate in sports and their difficulties in participating in sports. In this respect, it can be said that it is an important factor to keep the motivation of disabled individuals high at all times, regardless of their age, sports experience, and branches, so that they can more easily cope with the factors that make it difficult for them to do sports.

Cite this article as: Güvendi, B., Karahasan, D., Bozat, HS., Bilal Karakoç, Ü., & Tayfun Kara, Ü. (2025). Bedensel engelli sporcuların spora katılımın önündeki zorlanmaları ve motivasyonlarının incelenmesi. Research in Sports Science, 15, 0006, doi:10.5152/rss.2025.25006.