Analysis of the Relevant Factors of Retaining Women in Judo

This study aimed to determine the latent dimensions of all relevant factors about engagement of women in judo, to determine the intercorrelations among these latent dimensions, as well as the correlations with three relevant variables. Final goal was to determine the differences in revealed latent dimensions, in relation to several independent variables: educational level, marital status, impulses to engage in judo, then depending are the women athletes (competitors) or not, members of the Board or not, trainers or not. A total of 50 female judokas from a larger number of Croatian clubs were examined, by specially composed the survey. The results showed that all seven questionnaires showed medium to high satisfactory reliability, together with good construct validity, in 15 latent dimensions that are revealed. It can be noticed that relatively older women have more obligations and more barriers that oppose to their engagement in judo. Only small number of differences are found among women engaged in judo, mainly among participants who are members of the Board in the club or Croatian Judo Federation, as compared with those who are not. Small number of statistically significant differences (as well as the correlations) can be also observed as the fact that all women partially share similar problems, while the media strategies are perceived as the most powerful to increase women’s persistence in judo, in any type of engagement.