Whether to win at all costs? The athletes' attitudes towards fair play

Abstract

SummaryThe aim of this paper was to determine the athletes’ attitudes about fair play in sports, ie to determine whether there are differences in the athletes’ attitudes towards fair play in sports concerning gender, professional or amateur sports status, and length of participation in sport. Also, the research aimed to formulate an adequate questionnaire to assess athletes’ attitudes towards fair play. The sample of subjects consisted of 150 respondents. The results showed that there is a statistically significant difference in the intensity of athletes’ attitudes towards fair play concerning the gender of the respondents in all three subscales of the questionnaire (aggressiveness in the game, orientation towards victory, and orientation towards enjoying the game). It was found that there is a statistically significant difference in the intensity of athletes’ attitudes in relation to professional or amateur sports status (sig. =.001). It was also found that there is no statistically significant difference in the intensity of athletes’ attitudes about fair play in sports in relation to the length of participation in sports (sig. =.698). A questionnaire with a high degree of internal consistency was constructed (Cronbach alpha =.821).