SPORT IDENTITY OF VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS (AN INTERCULTURAL COMPARISON)

The objective of the article is to research the sport identity of volleyball players from various countries, and to find possible differences between these countries. The research embraces 10 Israeli, 11 Belarusian, 20 Austrian, 17 Slovenian, 9 Croatian, 12 Bosnian, 11 Serbian and 10 Australian male volleyball players who are members of their national teams. To collect adequate data a Sport Identity Questionnaire (Curry Weiss, 1989) was used (in modified form). On each subscale of the questionnaire a component analysis with a Varimax rotation was performed. Differences between the countries in component scores were analysed by MANOVA and ANOVA. The biggest differences among the players from the different countries were found in the following components of a sport identity: others think sports are important to me, a fear of not being able to be in sports any more, better use of free time, and excitement/career building. These characteristics can be used as a frame of reference for coaches, athletes and other experts.