Undergraduate co-curricular clubs are university sponsored activities that are a part of the educational process within an academic major that exist outside the realm of credit-driven courses, internships, or other field experiences (Judge et al., 2011. ). Within the field of sport management, co-curricular clubs provide students an opportunity to acquire field experiences (Foster & Dollar, 2010). The purpose of this research was to examine the influence of student (volunteer) motivations on their satisfaction volunteering at local sporting events for the undergraduate sport management club.
Method:
The undergraduate sport management club at a Midwestern institution was responsible for securing volunteers to staff a variety of local and university sporting events. Volunteer satisfaction was an important issue for the club because it experiences high turnover rates. For this study, 103 undergraduate students (45% of the students in the major) at a Midwestern University who had volunteered for at least one event through the co-curricular club completed a 51-item survey. The 33 volunteer motivation questions used in this study were adapted from Clary et al. (1998) and Bang and Ross (2009) and reduced to seven factors: Values, Understanding, Enhancement, Career, Social, Protective, and Sport. Reliability estimates for all seven factors were high. On average, students had volunteered for 14.5 events during their time in college and 5.4 events during the past academic year. Males comprised 75%, and underclassmen comprised 68.9% of the sample.
Analysis/Results:
Multiple regression was used to predict the satisfaction level of volunteers based on volunteer motivations. Gender, class standing, and the seven motivation factors were entered using backward elimination in order to identify the best subset of volunteer motivation variables. The final regression model included three volunteer motivation predictors, Career, Social, and Sport (F(9, 93) = 24.5, p < .001). These predictors accounted for 65.3% of the unique variance in volunteer satisfaction (adjusted R2= .409). The model indicated that increases in any of the three factors are likely to result in increases in satisfaction.
Conclusions:
Gaining career-related experience, acting on their love of sport, and establishing social relationships best explain students’ satisfaction with their volunteer experience. Sport management faculty and student organization leaders should emphasize and create an environment where students can gain relevant sport management field experiences and build social relationships with access to networking opportunities.