Experienced vs. Novice Participants Perception of Overall Quality and Intention to Join in Future Sport Trials: Case European Duathlon Championship.

Even though athletes' experience has been ascertained to shape the perception of quality in sports events, scarce studies have addressed this issue jointly with the intent to join in upcoming comparable sports challenges. (1) Background: The present research investigates how the experience determines the evaluation of the championship and future intentions. (2) Methods: The PLS (SEM) method was evaluated specifically for both novice and experienced duathlon participants, and secondly, the fsQCA methodology was applied with the intention to estimate combinatorial net effects to confirm the hypothesis proposed. (3) Results reveal that the overall quality is equally important for novice and experienced individuals as a determinant of future intentions. However, novices tend to value more positively all the dimensions analyzed, while experienced ones noted higher levels of demand. (4) These findings highlight the importance of designing adequate management strategies for the participants with different levels of performance.

Validez convergente de NPS y valoración de modelos de lealtad en servicios deportivos / Convergent validity of NPS and assessment of loyalty models in sports services

El fin del trabajo es determinar la validez de Net-Promoter-Score para medir la lealtad y comparar dos modelos que relacionan dimensiones de la calidad, valor, satisfacción y lealtad. En primer lugar, se determinó la validez convergente de Net-Promoter-Score en usuarios de servicios deportivos mediante una correlación entre ambos instrumentos. Posteriormente, se pusieron a prueba los dos modelos, utilizando en el primero Net-Promoter-Score y, en el segundo, una escala multidimensional que mide las intenciones futuras, en ambos casos se utilizó el mismo instrumento para valorar calidad, valor y satisfacción. Se realizó un análisis factorial confirmatorio de los modelos, con el objeto de comprobar la estabilidad de ambos. Los resultados obtenidos demuestran que los dos instrumentos son válidos para medir la lealtad de los usuarios de servicios deportivos y que el modelo que utiliza la escala multidemensional proporciona más información para la toma de decisiones de los responsables de la gestión. (AU)

The purpose of the work is to determine the validity of the Net-Promoter-Score to measure loyalty and to compare two models that relate dimensions of quality, value, satisfaction and loyalty. First, the convergent validity of the Net-Promoter-Score in users of sports services was determined by means of a correlation between both instruments. Subsequently, the two models were put to the test, using a Net-Promoter-Score in the first and a multidimensional scale that measures future intentions in the second, in both cases the same instrument was used to assess quality, value and satisfaction. A confirmatory factor analysis of the models was carried out in order to verify the stability of both. The results obtained show that the two instruments are valid for measuring the loyalty of users of sports services and the model that uses the multidemensional scale provides more information for decision-making by managers. (AU)

Future Intentions of Fitness Center Customers: Effect of Emotions, Perceived Well-Being and Management Variables.

One of the main objectives of fitness center managers is to obtain high levels of loyalty from the customers of these fitness centers. Within the existing literature on fitness center management, previous research has analyzed the importance of the management variables themselves to determine the behavioral intentions of their customers, ignoring other psychological and sociodemographic aspects and focusing on linear relationship models. Therefore, this study, which aims to analyze the impact of different management variables along with psychological (emotions and subjective well-being) and demographic variables (age and sex) on the satisfaction, perceived value (PV) and future intentions (FI) of 398 users (216 men, aged 18-75, Mean = 35.89 ± 14.53) of a fitness center, intends to fill this gap. In this study, two different methodologies are used, i.e., hierarchical regressions models (HRM) and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The data were obtained by means of a self-administered questionnaire composed of 69 items that collected different previously validated scales. Considering HRM, the different models proposed explain 52% of the satisfaction variance, 57% of perceived value and 59% of future intentions. In general, it seems that the management variables are better predictors than subjective well-being, emotions and age or gender since their inclusion does not greatly improve the model's predictive capacity. As far as QCA analyses are concerned, it seems that none of the conditions are necessary for high or low levels of satisfaction, perceived value or future intentions. On the other hand, based on sufficiency analyses, there seem to be 8 pathways or combinations of conditions leading to high levels of satisfaction and 13 for low levels, 11 combinations leading to high levels of IF and 10 leading to low levels; however, there are 6 combinations of conditions leading to high levels of PV and 5 leading to low levels. In general, some of the pathways consider only the management variables, although many of them consider the importance not only of the management variables but also of the interactions that these may have with emotional aspects and, to a lesser extent, with age and well-being. When comparing both methodologies, it can be observed that the QCA models are more explanatory than the HRM models and that they take into account aspects that seem unimportant when observing linear models (such as emotions or age). However, both methodologies should be considered complementary and used simultaneously since, by focusing on different aspects, enriched results are obtained. The results obtained will enable managers to make more efficient use of available resources to increase user satisfaction.

Overall Quality of Sporting Events and Emotions as Predictors of Future Intentions of Duathlon Participants.

The present study is intended to analyze the effect of global quality, perceived value, general satisfaction, and emotions on future behavior patterns among participants in the European Duathlon Championship. In this sense, a questionnaire was administered (n = 210), composed of four sections: essential demographic and profiling variables, perceived quality, overall quality, and emotions. Consequently, a relational model was designed to be examined by means of structural equation modeling (SEM) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Results reveal that global quality and general satisfaction are key dimensions for determining future behaviors of participants, but not so the perceived value. Moreover, up to three combinations of these dimensions together with emotions -pleasure and arousal- emerged as enough for depicting future intentions to a great extent. In this line, a remarkably sufficient combination consists of global quality, general satisfaction, pleasure, and arousal. These findings will guide organizers to design strategies that provide exciting experiences, as well as quality and satisfaction to the participants of sports events.

Communication as a Strategy to Promote Sports and Health Activities Designed for Adolescents.

Physical activity reduces the risk of developing noncommunicable diseases and improves quality of life, providing health benefits for present and future generations. This is especially relevant for adolescents. Educational institutions are promoters of healthy habits through the organisation of different activities such as extracurricular sports programmes. These activities increase the rates of sports practice among adolescents. The literature shows that the perceived quality of sports and health services is an antecedent of users' behavioural intentions. The aim of this paper is to find out whether communication from educational/sports organisations influences adolescents' intentions to continue engaging in physical activity. A total of 1080 students participated, with a mean age of 13.76 ± 1.39 years, 34.1% of whom were girls. Tests were conducted to verify the validity and reliability of the model that relates communication with value, satisfaction, and future intentions. Tests were conducted to verify the validity (average variance extracted was between 0.754 and 0.583) and reliability (composite reliability was between 0.925 and 0.813) of the model that relates communication with value, satisfaction, and future intentions. Confirmatory analyses and factor invariance tests were performed. The results revealed that communication is an antecedent of value, satisfaction, and future intentions. In conclusion, communication is a good strategy to consolidate sporting habits in both male and female adolescents.

Acute pain disrupts prospective memory cue detection processes.

Prospective memory refers to the planning, retention, retrieval, and execution of intentions for future behaviours and it is integral to the enterprise of daily living. Although prospective memory relies upon retrospective memory and executive processes often disrupted by pain, limited research has explored the influence of acute or chronic pain on the ability to complete prospective memory tasks. In the present study we investigated the influence of acute pain on prospective memory tasks that varied in their demands on executive processes (i.e., non-focal versus focal prospective memory cues). Complex-span working memory tasks were also administered to examine whether individual differences in working memory capacity moderated any negative impact of pain on prospective memory. Acute pain significantly impaired prospective memory performance in conditions that encouraged non-focal strategic processing of prospective memory cues, but not in conditions that encouraged more spontaneous focal processing. Individual differences in working memory capacity did not moderate the effect of acute pain on non-focal prospective memory. These findings provide new insights into prospective memory dysfunction created by painful experiences.

Efecto de los aspectos demográficos en la valoración de la calidad del servicio: una revisión / Effect of the demographic aspects in the valuation of the quality of the service: a review

Comprender los elementos que determinan la satisfacción de usuarios o de clientes de un servicio permite a las organizaciones -tanto públicas como privadas- diseñar e implementar estrategias dirigidas a mejorar los niveles de lealtad y de recompra, entre otras intenciones futuras. Este artículo tiene como propósito evidenciar el efecto que tienen las variables demográficas, como elementos o constructos determinantes de la calidad de un servicio. Para lograr este cometido, se han tenido en cuenta artículos de investigación publicados en revistas indexadas en Scopus, Science Direct y Ebsco Host, durante el periodo 2006-2016, referentes a casos empíricos, donde se analizaron las relaciones de las variables demográficas sobre constructos, que caracterizan la calidad del servicio. La revisión permitió evidenciar la existencia de efectos, positivos o negativos, de los aspectos demográficos de los clientes o consumidores, sobre las expectativas, las percepciones, la satisfacción y las intenciones futuras, siendo el género, la edad, los ingresos y el nivel de estudios, las variables con mayores incidencias.

Understanding the elements affecting the satisfaction of users and customers of a service enable organizations to conduct actions and strategies focused in performance the levels of loyalty and repurchase, among other future behaviour. The purpose of this article is to evidence the demographic variables effect, as one of the factors or constructs which could become an important determinant of the service quality. To achieve this purpose were taken into account papers published in the last 10 years, that included into an empirical case, some demographics variables. As result from this analisys, was evidenced effects -positives or negatives- from the demographics elements over the expectatives, perceptions, satisfaction and future behaviour, being the gender, age, income, and study level the variables with the most incidences.

Regularity effect in prospective memory during aging.

BACKGROUND: Regularity effect can affect performance in prospective memory (PM), but little is known on the cognitive processes linked to this effect. Moreover, its impacts with regard to aging remain unknown. To our knowledge, this study is the first to examine regularity effect in PM in a lifespan perspective, with a sample of young, intermediate, and older adults. OBJECTIVE AND DESIGN: Our study examined the regularity effect in PM in three groups of participants: 28 young adults (18-30), 16 intermediate adults (40-55), and 25 older adults (65-80). The task, adapted from the Virtual Week, was designed to manipulate the regularity of the various activities of daily life that were to be recalled (regular repeated activities vs. irregular non-repeated activities). We examine the role of several cognitive functions including certain dimensions of executive functions (planning, inhibition, shifting, and binding), short-term memory, and retrospective episodic memory to identify those involved in PM, according to regularity and age. RESULTS: A mixed-design ANOVA showed a main effect of task regularity and an interaction between age and regularity: an age-related difference in PM performances was found for irregular activities (older < young), but not for regular activities. All participants recalled more regular activities than irregular ones with no age effect. It appeared that recalling of regular activities only involved planning for both intermediate and older adults, while recalling of irregular ones were linked to planning, inhibition, short-term memory, binding, and retrospective episodic memory. CONCLUSION: Taken together, our data suggest that planning capacities seem to play a major role in remembering to perform intended actions with advancing age. Furthermore, the age-PM-paradox may be attenuated when the experimental design is adapted by implementing a familiar context through the use of activities of daily living. The clinical implications of regularity effect are discussed.

Intentions to Engage in Evidence-Based Practice among Undergraduate Social Work Students: Preliminary Findings from Romania.

Knowledge and familiarity of evidence-based practice (EBP) is a key competence to social workers entering the workforce. The literature review revealed no studies on Romanian graduates that have measured the beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors students have about EBP in the final semester of their bachelor's of social work (BSW) degree program. A sample of 89 students drawn from one public school in Romania completed the instrument. The questionnaire included measures of familiarity, attitudes, feasibility, and intentions for future use as well as demographic information. Overall, students are familiar with EBP steps and principles and have quite positive attitudes. However, only familiarity significantly predicts their intentions to engage in the EBP process upon graduation. Attitude does not contribute to the regression equation, meaning that these are not yet consolidated. These results indicate a need for attention to teaching EBP in BSW programs. To provide optimal care, practitioners must be able to locate, interpret, and apply current best evidence to a given social problem.

The influence of mood on the process and content of encoding future intentions.

Remembering to perform an intention in the future when some environmental cue is encountered is referred to as event-based prospective memory. The influence of mood on this future-oriented memory is unclear. By experimentally manipulating mood, the current set of experiments sought to examine the influence that differing mood states have on encoding future intentions. Participants were induced into a neutral, positive, or negative mood state at intention formation and returned to their baseline mood before beginning the prospective memory task. Relative to the neutral mood, positive mood facilitated and negative mood impaired intention encoding when neutrally toned cues were used, as evidenced by the proportion of cues subsequently detected. The use of negatively toned cues ameliorated the benefit of the positive mood but not the impairment of the negative mood. Further, reinstatement of the encoding mood during retrieval equated performance for all three mood conditions. Results suggest that encoded mood influences the future accessibility and completion of intended behaviours, perhaps through modulation of associative processing. The current study demonstrates that mood plays a determining role in encoding future intentions.