Among those which emerge as the most important and most commonly overlapping causes for participation, the article cites " (i) personal involvement with the good cause(s) supported by an occasion, (ii) opportunities to lead a healthy lifestyle provided by the event, (iii) an individual's involvement with the sport in question, and (iv) the desire to mix socially with other attendees." (Bennett et al., 155)
The article also makes a point of distinguishing a 'serious-minded' demographic for consideration, within which motives for participation take on slightly different proportions. That is to say that the article differentiates between general participants and those with a more active orientation toward both exercise and charity engagement. In this case, motives which emerged as most important were health and fitness; a previous involvement with the activity in question; and a more general social tendency toward high profile charity activities....
(Bennett et al., 160)
My critique:
By and large, the article satisfied the conditions of validity and value that I look for in scholarly research. Its focus on the general public and its motives for participations appear to be soundly constructed by a descriptive and semi-scientific resource review and survey. However, the distinction of the 'serious-minded' participant lacks empirical basis. Such is to say that the mild descriptive qualification for this type of individual -- particularly founded on self-report -- promotes something of a false categorization of respondents. A more factually-based distinction -- such as gender, age or socioeconomic class -- may have served greater value in this respect.
Works Cited:
Bennett, R.; Mousley, W.; Kitchin, P. $ Ali-Choudhury, R. (2007). Motivations for Participating in Charity-Affiliated Sporting Events. Journal of Customer Behaviour, 6(2), 155-178.
