Research Report: What sways women to play sport? – Motivations & Influencers

Key findings

• The roles that families, peers, local communities, specific sports communities and culture/society generally play varies at different times in a woman’s life and can include both triggers and barriers to her sporting participation.
• The behavioural model identifies six key ‘spheres of influence’ and shows sway factors that affect women’s sporting behaviour.

Recommendations

Influencers can be anyone and everyone

• It is not just those who are ‘sporty’ who influence others to participate in sport.

Influencers impact participation behaviour

• Influencers impact participation behaviour in different ways and in different contexts.
• A multi-pronged approach is required – the actions of different types of influencers should complement one another across the various contextual layers.

The new model of influence can be used to impact participation behaviour

• The ‘sway factors’ are complimentary and work best in combination with each other; each factor becomes more transformative at a different point along the behaviour change journey and then continues to impact participation positively.

Women’s influencers evolve over time

• Women are diverse and their influencers are strongly affected by the needs associated with particular points along their sports participation behavioural journey and their specific life stage.
• There is a need to identify where and when women are becoming disengaged with sport and where influencers can positively impact behaviour for women at different stages.

Recommended links and resources

1. Reach into Coaching website