This study examined differences in motivational factors for participating in action sports between Korean and American college students. A survey was administered to 492 participants, measuring 8 motivation dimensions. Results of statistical analysis revealed American students had significantly higher levels of motivation across all dimensions measured, even after controlling for gender, education, experience, and frequency of participation. This suggests cultural differences influence motivations for engaging in action sports between these two groups.

1. A Cross-Cultural Study of the Motivational Factors
Affecting Individuals’ Decisions about Participating in
Action Sports between Korean College Students and
Their American Counterparts
S. Roger Park (Saint Leo University, USA)
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to examine if there existed significant differences on the motivational
factors affecting individuals’ decisions about participating in action sports between Korean college
students and their American counterparts. Four hundred ninety-two action sports participants completed
the survey. Of 492 research participants, 275 (55.9%) were Koreans and 212 (43.1%) were Americans
with 5 (1%) missing data. The results of MANOVA revealed that American college students had higher
levels of participant motivations than their Korean counterparts, including achievement/status-oriented,
team-oriented, fitness-oriented, energy release-oriented, miscellaneous reason-oriented, skill
development-oriented, friendship-oriented, and fun-oriented, above and beyond what gender, educational
level, skill level, and the average number of days of participating in action sports explained.
Introduction
The booming action sports interest has become a worldwide phenomenon. Inline skaters, skateboarders,
and BMX riders were estimated at 150 million participants worldwide, and these main three sports have
shown a 700% increase in growth over the past 12 years, with a 30% growth in participants each year
(LG Mobile Phones, 2003). Professional action sports athletes were estimated at 30,000 people globally
(Liberman, 2004). Action sports fans could be found everywhere. A greater number of people have been
showing an interest in action sports, and they should no longer be considered a niche market of sport
business industry.
Sports scholars have shown an increased interest in the area of extreme sports in the past decade and they
have applied the motivation and personality theories into extreme sports participants. However, most of
these researchers focused only on the traditional extreme sports such as hang-gliding, kayaking, and rock
climbing (Doka, Schwarz, & Schwarz, 1990; Shoham, Rose, & Kahle, 1998) excluding action sports such
as inline skating, skateboarding, and/or snowboarding. In addition, little research has been done with
regard to the motivational factors affecting individuals’ decisions about participating in action sports
comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences between American action sports participants
and their Korean counterparts.

2. 1
Review of Literature
Cross-Cultural Studies in General
A number of research studies support that cultural effect is one of the important factors to explain a
certain pattern of individual thought and behavior from the psychological aspects. Yi and Park (2003)
found that people with different cultural backgrounds were more likely to have different attitudes and
styles of decision making in negotiation, bargaining processes, and problem solving in various social
settings because value systems differed.
Prior work suggests that the psychological results do not always translate when cultures were so different.
Stevenson and Stigler (1992) examined, for example,
that there was more belief in malleable intelligence and in the importance of effort among those in the
Asian culture than in the American culture when they compared the achievement beliefs of Asian and
American school children and their parents.
Bracken and Barona (1991) mentioned that obvious cultural influences included beliefs, customs, values,
degree of acculturation of assimilation, and generational status of the individual. Furnham, McClelland,
and Omer (2003) examined whether ratings of attractiveness and related attributes were indeed pan-
cultural, as evolutionary psychologists have suggested, or cultural-specific as some studies have
suggested (Furnham & Alibhai, 1983; Furnham & Baguma, 1994; Zebrowitz et al., 1993).
From the perspective of business, a cross-cultural study would still make many contributions to the
understanding of the international or multinational business market. Luo, Hoek, and Roos (2001)
identified that the ability to effectively manage logistics in a cross-cultural context has become one of the
crucial success factors in today’s business world in the face of ever-increasing globalization. In addition,
they insisted that cross-cultural logistics research could have the benefit of applying the experience
learned in cross-cultural research, in general, and through cross-cultural research in management and
marketing, through international business.
Cross-Cultural Studies in the Context of Sport
Despite the fact that more and more researchers and marketers all over the world have become interested
in cross-cultural studies, relatively few cross-cultural studies exist. Kriska (2000) studied the ethnic and
cultural issues in assessing physical activity and explained the substantial differences in the distribution of
both chronic diseases and inactivity among the various segments of the population.
“Not Just a Game” (1998) showed that people in various regions enjoy a variety of sports while
explaining the worldwide popularity of sporting events and estimating a television audience for the FIFA
World Cup Soccer in 1998, 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, Rugby World Cup, two Formula One
automobile-racing seasons, and American football. Concerning the two countries of Korea and the United
States, “Not Just a Game” (1998) indicated that the Korean people were more likely to enjoy baseball
than any other sports, while the American people were more willing to enjoy football.

3. 2
Sport Participant Motivation
Gill, Gross, and Huddleston (1983) attempted to measure the sport participants’ motivations for youth.
They created eight motivation factors of sport participation. The initial study showed that the most
important reasons for participating were to improve skills, have fun, learn new skills, be challenged, and
be physically fit (Gill, 2000). Several others used this measure, or a modification, with other youth sport
samples (Gould, Feltz, & Weiss, 1985; Klint & Weiss, 1986; Passer, 1988; Wankel & Kreisel, 1985), and
the results were consistent in several ways. Weiss and Chaumeton (1992) cited three common threads.
First, several factor analyses yielded consistent factors, including competence, fitness, affiliation, team
aspects, competition, and fun. Second, children and adolescents typically indicated that several motives
were important. Third, there were minimal age, gender, experience, and sport activity differences.
Dwyer (1992) sampled university students using a 5-point response format to examine the measure’s
internal structure. His resulting 6-factor structure (team orientation, achievement/status, fitness, friendship,
skill development, and fun/excitement/challenge) was similar to the results with youth samples, and all
subscales were internally consistent. The important motives for participating were to (a) maintain fitness;
(b) experience fun, excitement, and challenge; and (c) acquire and improve skills–findings consistent with
the youth literature (Gill et al., 1983; Gould et al., 1985; Klint & Weiss, 1987). The least important
reasons were friendship-oriented, achievement/status-oriented, and team-oriented factor; these vary from
the results with youth.
Instrument Translation and Back-Translation
The instrument translation needs to be loyal to the original context of the source instrument, and it should
also reflect a cultural understanding of the target language (Bracken & Barona, 1991). Bracken and
Barona (1991) mentioned that the following common translation techniques as (a) interpreters, (b) direct
translation, (c) bilingual translation, (d) committee, (e) field-testing, and (f) back-translation.
The most commonly applied technique is the back-translation technique. The advantage of the back-
translation technique is that it offers the opportunity for revisions to enhance the reliability and accuracy
of the translated instrument (Bracken & Barona, 1991; Geisinger, 1994; Van de Vijver & Hambleton,
1996; Van de Vijver & Leung, 2001). Therefore, the back-translation technique was utilized to obtain
consistency by comparing both the Korean and English instrument versions.
Researchers have identified the concerns of translating and adapting an instrument from one language to
another (Geisinger, 1994; Hui & Traindis, 1985; Van de Vijver & Hambleton, 1996). Brislin (1980)
proposed methods, such as back-translation, bilingual, committee, decentering, and pretests.
The instruments developed for this current study were translated from the English to the Korean version
by concept instead of translating word by word; this is more desirable because the translated items are
more meaningful to the Korean population (Geisinger, 1994).
Methodology
Participant Motivations Questionnaire (PMQ)

4. 3
Participation Motivations Questionnaire (PMQ) (Gill, Gross, & Huddleston, 1983) was used as the
research instrument. A 30-item instrument was rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The research instrument consisted of eight dimensions of
achievement/status with six items, team-oriented reasons with three items, fitness-oriented reasons with
three items, energy release with five items, miscellaneous reasons with three items, skill development
with three items, friendships with four items, and fun with three items. The item responses were summed
within each sub-dimension to create eight dimensions. The reliabilities of the sub-dimensions
were .95, .94, .97, .95, .84, .94, .93, and .95, respectively. The reliability of the eight dimensions was .98.
The validity of this instrument was reconfirmed for the current sample.
Demographics
A demographic questionnaire was developed for this study to obtain information concerning personal
characteristics, such as gender, educational level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, or graduate, etc),
skill level, age, nationality, and the average number of days of participating in action sports.
Translation and Back-Translation
There were four steps used in the process of translation and adaptation using the back-translation and
bilingual committee methods. Three bilingual committees were selected and they had a minimum of
undergraduate degree in the English speaking countries. The first bilingual committee translated the
original English version of the instrument into the Korean version (Brislin, 1980). The second bilingual
committee back-translated the Korean version into the English version, and the third bilingual committee
compared the two English versions. Finally, all three bilingual committees discussed the final version of
the instrument.
Participants
Four-hundred ninety-two action sports participants, who were going to 4-year colleges and universities in
Kyunggi province in Korea and in the state of Colorado, completed the survey. Data were collected
between December 2004 and January 2005 for Korean subjects and between January 2005 and February
2005 for their American counterparts. Of 492 action sports participants, 275 (55.9%) were Koreans and
212 (43.1%) were Americans while 5 (1%) subjects did not disclose their nationality. The research
participants averaged 3.20 (SD = 2.09 days) days of participating in action sports per year. The skill levels
of the research participants were beginner (35.4%), intermediate level (33.7%), high level (19.1%),
professional level (3.0%), and other (1.4%) with 7.3% missing data. In addition, 383 (77.8%) were males
and 101 (20.5%) were females while 8 (1.6%) did not answer their gender. The current research
participants ranged in age from 18 to 34 years old (M = 23.67, SD = 2.90). The education levels of current
research participants were graduate students (7.9%), senior (10.2%), junior (34.3%), sophomore (28.3%),
freshman (13.2%), and other (4.5%) with 1.6% missing data.
Data Normality
Test of multivariate data normality was conducted on the research instruments. The main reason for

5. 4
conducting the normality test was because the data normality would affect the results of statistical
procedures (Pedhazur & Schmelkin, 1991; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). Usually, MANOVA is required to
satisfy the assumption of data normality, which means that the observed variables need to be normally
distributed (Gravetter & Wallnau, 2000). According to Mardia’s (1985) suggestions, a skewness or
kurtosis value of a variable or an item greater than 2 or smaller than -2 is considered non-normally
distributed. Based on the results of Mardia’s (1985) multivariate normality test, all valuables did fit the
assumed distribution of multivariate.
In addition, Tabachnick and Fidell (2001) mentioned that sampling distributions of means are normally
distributed regardless of the distributions of variables with at least 20 degrees of freedom on the basis of
The Central Limit Theorem. Based on The Central Limit Theorem, the normality has been met because
each group had more than 20 degrees of freedom. Table 1 shows the mean, standard deviation, and
parameters of skewness and kurtosis of the variables for MANOVA for the current sample.
The internal consistency for the current research participants estimated by Cronbach’s alphas of
achievement/status-oriented motivation, team-oriented motivation,
fitness-oriented motivation, energy release-oriented motivation, miscellaneous-oriented motivation, skill
development-oriented motivation, friendship-oriented motivation, and fun-oriented motivation
were .77, .85, .77, .76, .58, .80, .71, and 75, respectively.
Table 1
Mean, Standard Deviation, and Parameters of Skewness and Kurtosis for MANOVA (N = 475)
Variable M SD Skewness Kurtosis
Age 23.67 2.90 .05 .22
Achievement/Status 18.63 4.57 -.09 .04
Fun 11.69 2.53 -.60 -.02
Friendship 14.13 3.13 -.34 .13
Miscellaneous 8.38 .05 .21 .18
Fitness 11.43 .54 .07 .23
Skill 10.87 2.89 -.58 -.26
Team 9.35 2.79 -.06 -.23
Energy 17.14 3.87 -.29 .18
Note. Judgments were made on 5-point scales
(1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree).
Results
MANOVA was utilized to test if the motivational factors affecting individuals’ decisions about
participating in action sports were different by nationality after blocking the variables of gender,
educational level, skill level, and the average number of days of participating in action sports. The

6. 5
purpose of using blocking variables in MANOVA was to control the effects of educational level, skill
level, and the average number of days of participating in action sports.
MANOVA was performed on eight dependent variables (DVs): achievement/status oriented, team-
oriented, fitness-oriented, miscellaneous-oriented, friendship-oriented, fun-oriented, skill development-
oriented, and energy release-oriented motivations. Independent variable was nationality (Korean and
American action sports participants) with blocking independent variables (IVs) of gender, educational
level, skill level, and the frequency of participating in action sports. Order of entry of blocking variables
was gender, educational level, skill level, and the frequency of participating in action sports.
It was critical to block the effects of those variables because the significant differences of DV, the
motivational factors affecting individuals’ decisions about participating in action sports, might bring
about by blocking variables not by necessarily nationality. The variable blocking was used basically to
control the effects of gender, educational level, skill level, and the average number of days of
participating in action sports on DV. Total N of 492 was reduced to 433 with the deletion of a case
missing a score on IV and DVs.
Tabachnick and Fidell (2001) referred to MANOVA as wasteful if DVs are very highly and positively
correlated as well as if DVs are uncorrelated. In order to examine the linear relationship among the DVs,
Pearson correlation has been conducted (see Table 2). On the basis of interrelations among the DVs, they
were moderately correlated in positive direction (from .38 to .71).
Table 2
The Interrelations among the Continuous Variables (N = 479)
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Achievement 1 .52*** .51*** .65*** .64*** .56*** .62*** .59***
2. Team 1 .48*** .45*** .47*** .38*** .45*** .51***
3. Fitness 1 .52*** .51*** .58*** .59*** .63***
4. Miscellaneous 1 .45*** .47*** .48*** .52***
5. Friendship 1 .53*** .59*** .60***
6. Fun 1 .71*** .64***
7. Skill 1 .57***
8. Energy 1
***p < .001.
Based on the results of MANOVA, there was a significant difference on all eight motivational factors
affecting individuals’ decisions about participating in action sports for Korean and American action sports
participants by nationality (F(8, 408) = 13.17, p < .001; η2 = .79) after blocking the variables of gender,

7. 6
educational level, skill level, and the average number of days of participating in action sports. In other
words, nationality explained the significant differences on the motivational factors affecting individuals’
decisions about participating in action sports above and beyond what the gender, educational level, skill
level, and the average number of days of participating in action sports explained. This revealed that
nationality was a significant variable to differentiate the motivational factors affecting individual’s
decisions about participating in action sports for Korean and American action sports participants. Table 3
provides means and standard deviations of nationality for Korean and American action sports participants.
Table 3
Means and Standard Deviations of Nationality for the Motivational Factors Affecting Individuals’
Decisions about Participating in Action Sports between Korean Action Sports Participants and Their
American Counterparts (N = 433)
Korean American
Variable M SD M SD
Achievement/Status 17.60 4.06 20.12 4.74
Team-Oriented 9.03 2.42 9.81 3.14
Fitness-Oriented 10.30 2.16 12.99 2.18
Miscellaneous 7.92 2.00 8.99 2.67
Friendship 12.67 2.54 12.67 2.68
Fun-Oriented 10.35 2.13 13.51 1.67
Skill Development 9.66 2.75 12.54 2.13
Energy Release 15.44 3.41 19.42 3.15
Discussion
American action sports participants had significantly higher levels of motivational factors affecting
individuals’ decisions about participating in action sports, including achievement/status-oriented, team-
oriented, fitness-oriented, friendship-oriented, fun-oriented, miscellaneous-oriented, energy release-
oriented, and skill development-oriented, than their Korean counterparts. In other words, the cultural
diversity was a critical factor to differentiate the motivational factors.
Limitations
The first and utmost limitation of this dissertation is the generalizability of the results. This current study
adopted a convenient sampling method due to the difficulty in obtaining college action sports participants
both in the state of Colorado and in Kyunggi province in Korea. Therefore, it should be careful when
generalizing the results of this study. More specifically, the results of this current study might not be
generalized beyond the population of college students, who are going to skate parks in the state of
Colorado and in Kyunggi province in Korea. However, the study still added more information in the

8. 7
understanding of globalization of action sports to the existing literature.
Implementation
Action sports consumers are diverse in terms of demographics and psychographics in different consumer
markets. However, eight motivations such as achievement/status, team-oriented, fitness-oriented,
miscellaneous, friendship, fun-oriented, skill development-oriented, and energy release-oriented can be
used as common motivational factors to identify why people enjoy action sports in Korea and in the USA.
Recommendations for Future Study
This current study opened the door for the action sports researchers and business managers to conduct
multinational-comparison study to identify the motivational factors affecting individuals’ decisions about
participating in action sports. More and more international levels of action sports events have been born
all over in the world. Therefore, it is expected to see more multi-national and/or multi-cultural studies in
the area of the action sports industry.
Third, quantitative research methodology was beneficial for conducting a cross-cultural study comparing
and contrasting the motivational factors between Korean and American action sports participants.
However, for future studies, qualitative research methods, including interviewing, would be of use in
analyzing the personality of action sports participants because of that methods’ propensity to dig deep into
personality from the psychological perspective.
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