Background : The purpose of this research was the qualitative survey of effective factors on students' participation in extracurricular sports activities. Method: The research methodology was qualitative, the kind of phenomenology with targeted sampling gathered through in-depth interviews with 16 students from Allameh Tabataba’i University of Tehran, Iran. The number of students in this university (research population) was about 18,000 in the academic year 2016-17. All interviews were carefully recorded, and then the analysis of the text of the interview was carried out by Smith’s method. Results: Findings from the interviews with students was extracted in three main themes, including: Students' enthusiasm for sports activities, motivational factors of sports participation, and barriers to sports participation. 30 sub-themes are also included. Conclusions: Based on the results of this study, it is recommended that authorities and managers of extracurricular sports activities of universities pave the way for the development of extracurricular sports activities for students by removing barriers to sports participation and improving the factors of motivation and enthusiasm for sports.
