The purpose of this study was to first examine the role of coaches, peers, and significant others in the development of relatedness as it applies to the motivation of adult Master swimmers, and second to develop recommendations for coaches. The participants in this study were 87 Masters swimmers from the Wasatch Front region of Utah in the counties of Davis, Weber, Utah, Wasatch, Salt Lake, and Summit. Participants in this study were registered members of United States Masters Swimming(USMS) and were spread across eleven age-group classifications in five-year increments and ranging in age from 18 to 74. There were 43 adult males and 44 adult females that participated in completing an open-ended response questionnaire. The results of this study show that relatedness, fostered by coaches, peers and significant others, plays a key role in getting and keeping adult Masters swimmer in the water to train and compete.

This thesis aimed to: (a) design a factorially valid survey to assess sub-themes relating to ‘involvement opportunities’ (IOs), which are an antecedent variable in the sport commitment model (Wilson et al., 2004); (b) examine the placement of enjoyment alongside IOs in the sport commitment model; (c) determine the pathways (i.e., direct and/or indirect) by which specific IOs sub-themes affect functional and obligatory commitment and if they differ in number, strength and direction of association (Choosakul et al., 2009); and (d) examine differences between recent initiates compared to those who have been more continuously involved (Chu & Wang, 2012) in Masters swimming. Based on exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of survey data from 725 swimmers (260 males, 465 females, M age = 50.5, range = 25-92), results confirmed a 10 factor solution of IOs sub-themes. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that the number, direction, and strength of associations between specific IOs sub-themes and commitment vary depending on commitment type, as do the nature of direct and indirect pathways affecting commitment. Invariance testing showed recent initiates and continuously-involved swimmers to be invariant across measurement and structural models. Overall, results support the need to measure and assess IOs at the level of the sub-theme and to consider a bi-dimensional (Santi et al., 2014; Wilson et al., 2004) sport commitment model.