THE ADAPTATION OF "VOLUNTEER MOTIVATIONS SCALE FOR INTERNATIONAL SPORTING EVENTS" INTO TURKISH

Nowadays, thousands of volunteers take part in all units of mega sporting events and help make the event a success. So, volunteers defined as “unpaid workers” have big importance for the success of sports events. Determining the motivational factors of volunteers for being a volunteer in international sporting events and planning and implementing human resource strategies to attract them to the organization according to these factors is an important study field in management of international sporting events. The aim of this study is a) to adapt “Volunteer Motivations Scale for International Sporting Events” to Turkish and b) to test validity and reliability of the scale developed by Bang et al. (2009) for the purpose of determining the motivational factors of volunteers taking part in international sporting events. A total of 330 volunteers taking part in international sporting events, like FIFA U-20 World Cup (109 volunteers) and 17. Mediterranean Games (223 volunteers) which were organized in Turkey and accepting to participate to this study consisted the sample of this study. The easy sampling method was used. An online survey was conducted to the sample. As an instrument, “Volunteer Motivations Scale For International Sporting Events” (VMS-ISE) developed by Bang et al. (2009) for the purpose of determining the motivational factors of volunteers taking part in international sporting events was used. In the statistical analysis of the data, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was employed in order to assess the construct validity of the scale. Then a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed to test the accuracy of the structure designed as a result of EFA. The CFA results show that the chi-square/degrees of freedom was found as (χ2/df= 3.26) and the other parameters were found as IFI=0.905, the RMSEA=0.078, the CFI=0.904. The Total Cronbach’s alpha score of the scale had a mean of 0.894. Finally, the original Volunteer Motivations Scale for International Sporting Events consisting of 30 items and 7 subscales, became a new version consisting of 25 items and 6 subscales in adaptation study. These subscales are “Patriotism”, “Expression of Values”, “Love of Sport”, “Career Orientation”, “Interpersonal Contacts” and “Extrinsic Rewards”. The results show that the scale is a valid and reliable measurement tool in Turkish population.