An investigation of the sports participation motivation of students with orthopedic and hearing impairments

The study aims to investigate the levels of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation of the student athletes with orthopedic and hearing impairments towards sports participation. In the study, survey method, a qualitative research design was used. The data were collected about the sports participation motivation among the athletes, and the relation between the orthopedically handicapped and hearing-impaired athletes were assessed in terms of their demographical characteristics (age, gender, type of impairment). The participants were composed of a total number of 100 athletes – orthopedically handicapped (70) and hearing-impaired (30) – registered in the Northern Cyprus Sports Federation for Persons with Disabilities. Pursuant to the results of orthopedically handicapped and hearing-impaired athletes, there is no significant difference based on the variables of gender and type of disability whereas there are significant differences per the age group variable