Education

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediation role of athlete satisfaction on the relationship between transformational leadership style of Iranian high schools' coaches and sport commitment of Iranian high schools' football players and also to develop a coaching model. The survey design, correlational study and inferential statistics were applied in this research. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was applied as a strong procedure to analyze the data and develop the models. Population of this study was 558 football players (15-20 years). 280 high schools' football players were selected to participate in this study by using the simple random sampling procedure. Instruments of the study were MLQ (Avolio and Bass, 1995), SCMS and ASQ ( Riemer and Chelladurai, 1998). Moreover, SEM and ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) applied for testing hypotheses of the study. The results of the study indicated that there is a positive and significant relationship between transformational leadership style of coaches and athlete's satisfaction of football players. In addition, athlete satisfaction significantly mediated the relationship between transformational leadership style of coaches and sport commitment of football players. All fit indices of the measurement and mediation models were acceptable. There these models were fit the data of the current study. Findings of this study revealed that transformational coaches with increasing satisfaction of football players would increase the sport commitment of football players.

Factors that influence the academic achievement of Malaysian university athletes were investigated using 156 field hockey players from several universities. The relationship between team subculture, parental influence, the learning environment, support systems, financial aid, training factors, academic assistance, socialization, and stress level and academic achievements of student athletes were examined using the Team Socialization Scale (Allen, 1997). There was a significant positive relationship between the learning environment and academic achievements of university athletes but a negative relationship was found between support system and academic achievements. Implications and suggestions on how to improve the academic achievement of athletes in Malaysian universities were discussed in the study.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between transformational leadership style of Iranian high schools' coaches, sport commitment and athletes' satisfaction of Iranian high schools' football players. The survey design, correlational study, and inferential statistics were applied in this research. The SEM was applied as a strong procedure to analyze the data and to develop the models. This study conducted in Alborz province of Iran. Population of this study was 558 football players (15-20 years), participating in an annual tournament that is organized by the Ministry of Education's sport department of Iran. A total of 280 high schools' football players were selected to participate in this study by using the simple random sampling procedure. . The results of the study indicated that there is a positive and significant relationship between transformational leadership style of coaches, sport commitment (r = .419, β =.478, ρ value=.001), and athlete satisfaction of football players(r = .386, β =.443, ρ value=.001). Therefore, it can be concluded that transformational leadership behaviors can increase sport commitment and athletic satisfaction of high schools' football players. Structural model was fit the data of the current study.

The purpose of this study was to investigate Malaysian students' sport spectatorship motives and to determine differences in motives in terms of gender and nationalities. Using Capella's (2001) Fan Behavior Questionnaire, data was collected from 259 local and international students studying at Universiti Putra Malaysia. The result of t-tests (p < 0.05) suggests significant differences in motives between males and females in terms of pro social behaviors (t = 3.308), anti-social behaviors (t = 4.104), and emotionality (t = 5.383). Local and international students differed significantly in terms of pro social behaviors dimension (t = 2.203, p < 0.05), but there was no significant difference in terms of negative behaviors and emotionality. The results of the study were discussed in light of earlier findings concerning motives of watching sports events.

There is a lack of literature on sport tourists attending small-scale sport events and their travel behaviors in Malaysia. This lack of data makes it difficult for tourism authorities in to implement effective market segmentation and targeting. Thus it is necessary to conduct a study to explore the potential of small-scale sporting event as tourist attraction in Malaysia using Leiper's (1990) tourist attraction system as framework. A study is conducted on participants and spectators attending a mountain bike race and motor cross events in Lake Kenyir Malaysia. Data were collected quantitatively from 400 subjects using the Leisure Motivation Scale developed by Ragheb and Beard (1983). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logistic regression. Visitors to sport event at Lake Kenyir fall into three categories: (1) sport excursionist, (2) active sport tourist and (3) passive sport tourists and the majority of the respondents (81.75%) were sport tourists. The results indicate factors such as competence mastery and intellectual factors are significant variables which motivate people to seek active sport-oriented vacations. Passive sport tourists are motivated by social factors and the need to escape from over stimulating situations. This study confirmed the usefulness of Leiper's tourist attraction theory in sport tourism.