Using the Theory of Reasoned Action to examine the gambling behaviors of college athletes and other students.

Reasoned Action;Gambling;College athletes

Robert Gene Thrasher

University:University of Louisville

Department:College of Education and Human Development

关键词: Reasoned Action;    Gambling;    College athletes;   

Others  :  https://ir.library.louisville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2441&context=etd

美国|英语

来源: The Universite of Louisville's Institutional Repository

【 摘 要 】

Legal and illegal gambling opportunities are readily available to students on college campuses and surrounding areas (Saum, 1999). College students are at an age that is highly impressionable, experimental, and prime to taking risks while ignoring the potential consequences (Oster, 1992). Because of their desire for competition, college student athletes may be highly susceptible to the lure of gambling. While the rates of pathological gambling are high for college students, the rates for the subpopulation of college student athletes are posited to be even higher (Rockey, Beason, Lee, Stewart, & Gilbert, 1997). The general purpose of the current study was to examine the gambling behavior of college students and, in particular, college student athletes. Specifically, this study examined the relationships among subjective norms, gambling attitudes, gambling motivations, locus of control, and gambling intentions on the gambling behavior of college students. The goal of this study was to assess gambling in a specific population with easy access to gambling and to evaluate the adequacy of a modified Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) for predicting gambling frequency and gambling behavior. Several studies have used the TRA to examine gambling behavior (Cummings & Corney, 1989; Moore & Ohtsuka, 1997, 1999; Oh & Hsu, 2001). All of these studies have found the TRA to be an effective instrument when examining gambling behavior. However, the researcher chose to modify the TRA in the current study by adding two moderating variables, intrinsic motivation and locus of control, to the conceptual model in order to provide a better conceptual model for future research. The population (N = 345) was recruited from Health and Sport Sciences Department classes at the University of Louisville. The average age of the participants was 21.1 years. Participants completed a self-reported survey containing 90 items and it was completed during class time. Evidence of the validity and reliability of each instrument in the survey was provided. With the exception of the Gambling Motivation Scale for Intrinsic Motivation to Experience Stimulation, estimates of internal consistency for each scale were acceptable as coefficient alphas ranged from .76 to .90. The current study found males reported statistically more positive attitudes towards gambling than females, but did not report statistically different subjective norms. Student athletes reported no significant differences in attitudes or subjective norms when compared to other students. The current study also found that attitudes and subjective norms both significantly and positively