People spend much of their time in their early years striving for success so that they will have comfort in their old age. However, paradoxically, older people need an incentive to restructure their lives after retirement, for example, an opportunity to participate with peers in physical activities (Berryman-Miller, 1988). Previous researchers have found that older adults participate in serious leisure activities as a way to create and enrich social connections (Lyons & Dionigi, 2007; Son, Kerstetter, Yarnal, & Baker, 2007); thus, leisure service providers need to create a variety of such activities (Der Ananian & Janke, 2010). In recent years, ballroom dancing has emerged as a popular leisure activity for older adults in Taiwan, for whom it is a social as well as a physical activity (Li, 2010). Further, retirees have time to become involved in regular dance classes, which enable them to maintain the quality of their lives (McAdam, 1988).

The Importance of Physical Fitness for Older Adults

People aged 65 and older account for 12.21% of the total population of 23,456,545 in Taiwan, which is a 10.5% increase in that age group in the past 3 years (Executive Yuan, 2015). Physical inactivity of older adults places a huge financial and social burden on society, and the health benefits of being physically active have been widely acknowledged. Current recommendations for physical activity among older adults are 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity each week, and a stretching routine for 10 minutes several days a week (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). Hirsch et al. (2010) showed that moderately active men and women lived 1.3 and 1.1 years longer, respectively, than did sedentary individuals. As a physical activity, ballroom dancing is a low-impact aerobic workout, and it can induce increases of 60% to 70% of the maximal heart rate (Wright, 2002).

The Sport Commitment Model

Ballroom dancing was introduced in Taiwan by retreating foreign soldiers after World War II and it has gradually become popular with people of all ages after a nationwide ban on dancing was lifted in 1987 (Lee, 2000). However, leisure service providers face difficulties in retaining older dancers. Previous researchers have shown that about half of the individuals taking part in sport drop out within a short period of time (Dishman, 2001). To find out how committed older adult ballroom dancers are to ballroom dancing, we used the sport commitment model (SCM), which, according to Casper and Andrew (2008), was adapted from social exchange theory, and initially derived from a combination of the investment model (Rusbult, 1980) and Kelley’s (1983) model of romantic relationships. Scanlan, Carpenter, Schmidt, Simons, and Keeler’s (1993) development of the SCM was based on evidence that enjoyment, social support and constraints, involvement alternatives and opportunities, and personal investment are key factors in loyalty and commitment in sport (see also Carpenter, Scanlan, Simons, & Lobel, 1993). Scanlan et al. defined sport commitment as a psychological state representing the desire and resolve to continue participation in any sport or sport program. Further, they stated that personal investment, involvement alternatives, involvement opportunities, sport enjoyment, social support, and social constraints may increase or decrease sport commitment. Sport enjoyment is a positive affective response to a sport experience, reflecting generalized feelings such as pleasure, liking, and fun. Involvement alternatives are the attractiveness of the most preferred alternative(s) to continued participation in the current activity. Personal investment involves personal resources, such as time, effort, and money, which are put into the activity and cannot be recovered if participation is discontinued. Social constraints are social expectation or norms that create feelings of obligation to remain in the current activity. Involvement opportunities are the anticipated benefits received through continued participation, such as social interaction, skill mastery, and physical conditioning. Social support refers to pride, emotional comfort, sources of information, and financial support received by an individual from a group of people (Scanlan et al., 1993). Overall, sport enjoyment, personal investment, social constraints, social support, and involvement opportunities are regarded as being positively, and involvement alternatives negatively, associated with sport commitment (Casper & Andrew, 2008).

The SCM is a widely accepted framework for use in understanding sport participation commitment. Previous researchers have used the SCM to assess levels of sport commitment and its determinants among populations such as amateur youth athletes in Western society (Carpenter et al., 1993; Casper & Andrew, 2008; Scanlan et al., 1993; Wilson et al., 2004). In addition, Eastern scholars have adopted the model for use in assessing elite youth athletes (Cheng & Ji, 2005; He, 2009; Lin, 2008). However, the SCM has yet to be tested with older adults in a leisure activity such as ballroom dancing.

Ballroom dancing instructors need to understand which SCM determinants increase older adults’ level of commitment to participation, in order to tailor programs appropriately. Therefore, we examined potential differences in level of sport commitment and its determinants, and hypothesized that of participation method, experience level, and frequency of participation would each have a significant effect on commitment to participate.

Method

Participants

Participants (N = 180) were selected from ballrooms, dance studios, municipal parks, and fitness centers with ballroom dance programs, in Taiwan. Of the returned questionnaires, 150 were usable and 30 were invalid as the respondents were aged under 50 years (response rate = 83%). Men comprised 35.3% (n =53) and women 64.7% (n = 97) of the sample, and the age distribution was as follows: 76.0% (n = 114) aged 55–60 years, 11.3% (n = 17) aged 61–65 years, 7% (n = 9) aged 50–54 years or above 71 years, and 3.3% (n = 5) aged 66–70 years. Five participants did not report their age.

Instruments

The questionnaire was divided into two major parts and comprised 41 questions. The first part was used to collect background information, such as gender, age, level of education, employment status, and monthly income, as well as participation method, experience level, and frequency of participation in ballroom dancing. We devised the second part to assess sport commitment among older adult ballroom dancers, using a combination of He’s (2009) Sport Commitment Questionnaire for Elite Volleyball Players and Wilson and colleagues’ (2004) Exercise Commitment Scale. We made minimal modifications to the original questionnaires by changing the classification of the participants to older adult ballroom dancers, but the overall scheme remained the same. In regard to the factorial validity of the Sport Commitment Questionnaire, exploratory factor analysis by principal components extraction and promax rotation identified seven factors that explained 63.09% of the variance. The content of the loaded questions indicated that the factors had acceptable internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alphas of .88 (sport commitment), .87 (sport enjoyment), .81 (involvement alternatives), .83 (personal investment), .87 (involvement opportunities), .86 (social constraints), and .88 (social support).

Data Analysis

We performed three analyses of variance (ANOVA) to examine whether or not the older adult ballroom dancers who differed according to participation method, experience level, and frequency of participation also differed in terms of the six determinants of sport commitment (involvement opportunities, sport enjoyment, social support, personal investment, social constraints and involvement alternatives) and overall sport commitment. Scheffé post hoc tests were used to investigate the differences. The significance level was set at p < .05.

Results

Participation Method

The ANOVA results showed that there was a significant effect of participation method on the determinant of personal investment, F(2, 147) = 3.35, p < .05. Participants who took part in both modern and Latin dance had more personal investment than did those who participated only in Latin dance, as shown by the Scheffé post hoc test results.

Experience Level

The ANOVA results showed that there was a significant effect of experience level on overall sport commitment, F(5, 144) = 2.82, p < .05, as well as the determinants of sport enjoyment, F(5, 144) = 2.57, p < .05, personal investment, F(5, 144) = 3.79, p < .05, and involvement opportunities, F(5, 144) = 4.30, p < .05. The Scheffé post hoc test showed that participants with 15 or more years of dance experience had more personal investment than did those who had danced for either less than 1 year or between 1 and 3 years. However, post hoc comparisons showed no significant differences between experience level and the variables of sport commitment, sport enjoyment, and involvement opportunities. Although the corresponding ANOVA results were significant, the practical use of this outcome is minimal.

Frequency of Participation

Results indicated that there was a significant effect of frequency of participation on overall sport commitment, F(4, 145) = 3.86, p < .05, and the determinants of involvement opportunities, F(4, 145) = 3.78, p < .05, personal investment, F(4, 145) = 7.49, p < .05, and social support, F(4, 145) = 2.95, p < .05. The Scheffé post hoc test showed that participants who danced for 10 or more hours per week had a higher level of sport commitment than did those who danced for only 2 to 3 hours per week. Participants who danced for 10 or more hours per week also not only had more personal investment than did those who danced for less than 2 hours, between 2 and 3 hours, or between 4 and 5 hours per week, but also had more involvement opportunities than did their counterparts who danced for less than 2 hours per week. However, pairwise comparisons showed minimally significant differences between each pair in terms of the effect of frequency of participation on social support; thus, the practical use of this outcome is minimal.

Discussion

In an aging society, such as Taiwan, it is imperative to understand how to maintain the physical and mental health of older adults in order to sustain their quality of life. In this study, we used the SCM to test the commitment of older adult ballroom dancers based on frequency of participation, experience level, and participation method. Our results are contrary to those of previous Western and Eastern researchers (Carpenter et al., 1993; Casper & Andrew, 2008; Cheng & Ji, 2005; He, 2009; Lin, 2008; Scanlan et al., 1993; Wilson et al., 2004), who found nonsignificant effects of personal investment. Further, some scholars found that sport enjoyment was the main determinant of sport commitment (Carpenter et al., 1993; Scanlan et al., 1993; Wilson et al., 2004). Explanations for the differences in results could be that the participants in the previous studies either competed at the elite level or were too young to earn the financial means necessary to support their chosen physical activity.

Our finding that participants who spent more than 10 hours a week on ballroom dancing responded that they had more involvement opportunities than the other participants said they had indicates that an increase in participation resulted in positive self-fulfillment. In a similar study on college-aged ballroom dancing competitors, Chu and Wang (2012) found that involvement opportunities and social support were the key determinants for participation retention, whereas personal investment and involvement opportunities were most important for older adult ballroom dancing participants. If dance instructors and leisure service providers take into consideration that involvement opportunities are the anticipated benefits received through continued participation, then it is reasonable to assume that older adult dance participants should participate not only in their usual pairs, but also in a group setting with many pairs to promote wider social interaction. Personal investment had a significant effect on participation method, experience level, and frequency of participation, which suggests that as the participants were older adults, they had more financial means than younger people have to support their chosen leisure activity. Leisure service providers and dance instructors should also take advantage of this and provide more group dance lessons and activities for older adults.

Implications for Practice and Research

Our main purpose in this study was to determine what kept ballroom dance participants aged 50 years and over committed to dance as their physical activity of choice. This is important because physical inactivity increases with age and is a critical health issue (Leavy & Åberg, 2010). As there are many benefits in remaining active and engaged in physical activity, it is important for older adults to be happy and content when taking part in ballroom dancing (Berryman-Miller, 1988). Our results will help leisure service providers and instructors of ballroom dancing to understand that sport enjoyment, personal investment, and involvement opportunities are important determinants for older adults to remain active in ballroom dancing.

Study Limitations and Directions for Future Research

A limitation in this study was the limited number of places that we could visit where questionnaires could be filled out, owing to restrictions of time and budget. In addition, some participants found the questionnaire to be long, and some needed to have the questions read to them. This may have led to mistakes being made. The SCM was designed for use with collegiate athletes without regard to age, and so has most often been used with youth athletes. Future researchers should test this model with older adults to determine if it is valid for use with this age group. In addition, determinants of sport commitment can change. Knowledge of these potential changes, in combination with our findings, show that different factors can affect participants’ commitment over time. If these factors are identified, instructors and peers in the dancing class can find new ways to motivate participants and keep them physically active in ballroom dancing for a longer period of time.

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Angel Yin Chu, Crown Dance, 11th Floor, No. 2-143 Wu Quan Road, Taichung City, Taiwan, ROC. Email: [email protected]