Abstract

The main objective of this study has consisted of analyzing the sport participating motivation among three representative samples of the university students of Murcia, Valencia and Almería, according to the gender and the age of the interviewed students. For this, 801 students (average age = 21 years-old) answered to the Questionnaire of attitudes, motivations and interests about the physical and sport activities (CAMIAF). In this work, a factor analysis evidenced the existence of six factors, with a high internal consistency (a=  .91). After the analysis and interpretation of the data it is demonstrated that according to the gender, males give more importance to those aspects related to competition, hedonism and social relationships, personal capability and adventure, whereas women prefer to practice physical and sport activities for reasons related with physical form, personal image and health. Furthermore, the youngest students (under 21 years-old) are those who give higher importance to competition, in order to compensate the physical inactivity of daily activities and to personal capabilities, when practicing physical and sport activities