Honors College Theses

Publication Date

4-20-2015

Major

Exercise Science (B.S.)

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (restricted to Georgia Southern)

Faculty Mentor

Dr. Daniel Czech

Abstract

Competitiveness is defined as the desire to win in interpersonal situations. Gender and Age differences in competitiveness are widely cited throughout the literature; however, many of the studies fail to focus on differences in competitiveness in race. As well, many of the studies on gender, race, and age have been conducted over 25 years ago (Gill and Deeter, 1988; Gill, 1988) with students and athletes of a different generation from the current generation of students. The purpose of this exploratory study is to compare competitiveness levels between gender, race, and age of students within the Millennial Generation. The design of this study was a quantitative, quasi-experimental, cross-sectional descriptive study. A 31-item researcher design questionnaire was administered to current university students (n=1724) to measure physical activity, course satisfaction, and sport orientation (Competitiveness, Win Orientation, and Goal Orientation.) Data was gathered from students at a midsized southeastern university who are enrolled in physical activity classes. The survey contained demographic questions as well as the Sport Orientation Questionnaire, both of which have been found to be psychometrically reliable and valid. In order to increase participation, students were verbally recruited by their instructors with a bonus grade incentive. T-tests and ANOVAs were used to determine if significant differences in the demographic independent variables existed between groups, while Pearson’s correlation was used to examine relationships. Results revealed significance levels between all categories, with women scoring higher than men and freshmen and Asians scoring lower than all other school or race classifications.

Download

Share

COinS