Resilience, Motivations for Participation, and Perceived Organizational Support Amoungst Aesthetic Sports Officials.

In comparison to athletes and coaches, sport officials have received relatively little attention from the sport science community. The purpose of this investigation was to examine resilience, participation motivations, and perceptions of organizational support for those officiating aesthetic sports. Seventy-six (62 females, 14 males) Canadian officials from diving, figure skating, artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, and synchronized swimming volunteered to participate. They completed measures of resilience, motivation, and POS and provided qualitative responses to a series of open-ended questions. The results indicated that they were highly resilient and motivated to participate because of their love for the sport and desire to stay connected to the sports' social communities. Univariate ANOVA procedures revealed significant differences, including three-way interaction effects in measures of resilience, motivation (i.e., extrinsic motivation as introjected regulation, amotivation), and POS by sex, officiating rank, and officiating setting. Implications for sport and officiating administrators are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]