Why Ref? Understanding sport officials’ motivations to begin, continue, and quit

Abstract
With attrition rates of 30% (Deacon, 2001), organizations need to understand sport officials’ motivations to become and remain officials rather than quit. The purpose of this study was to assess these motivations. Using questionnaire data from an existing survey, we categorized participants (N = 514) as interactors, monitors, and reactors (MacMahon & Plessner, 2008). Sport officials were motivated to begin officiating for intrinsic and for the sport reasons. For continuing officiating, participants cited intrinsic and social motivations. Finally, interactors, monitors, and reactors cited lack of respect, too much stress, and lack of recognition, respectively, as their main beliefs for why sport officials quit. Practical recommendations are provided, which might assist sport governing bodies in recruiting and retaining sport officials.
Description
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by EDP Sciences in Movement & Sport Sciences on 23/01/2015, available online: https://doi.org/10.1051/sm/2014018. This work was previously presented at the Canadian Society for Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology conference, held in November, 2012, at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Keywords
interactors, monitors, reactors, referees
Citation
David J. Hancock, Donald J. Dawson, & Denis Auger. (2015) Why Ref? Understanding sport officials’ motivations to begin, continue, and quit., Movement & Sport Sciences, 87, 31-39, DOI: 10.1051/sm/2014018
DOI
10.1051/sm/2014018
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