Leisure constraints theory was used as a framework to systematically review factors associated with dropout of organized sport among children and adolescents. Keyword searches for the population, context and construct of interest (i.e. dropout) identified articles from the entire contents of the following databases: Academic Search Complete, ERIC, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and SPORTDiscus. The initial search yielded 557 studies, and 43 met the selection criteria. Most studies focused solely on adolescents, and 89% of participants were male. Most studies were cross-sectional using quantitative approaches. Almost 30 different sports were included in the reviewed studies; however, the most represented sports were soccer, swimming, gymnastics and basketball. Findings from this review indicated that intrapersonal and interpersonal constraints are more frequently associated with dropping out of sport than structural constraints. Although many discrete factors associated with dropout were identified, five major areas emerged: lack of enjoyment, perceptions of competence, social pressures, competing priorities and physical factors (maturation and injuries). Rarely were the interrelationships between factors or the underlying dimensions of factors examined. Future research would benefit from mixed-methods and prospective approaches. These approaches would allow children and youth to explain how their experience of sport shaped their motives to dropout and allow researchers to probe the extent to which affordances and motives for participation aligned with athletes’ reasons for dropping out.

The significant relationship between motor proficiency and perceptions of competence did not in turn influence kindergarten children's participation in physical activity. These findings support concepts of developmental differences in the structure of the self-perception system.

Background: Developmental theorists suggest that physical activity during early childhood promotes fundamental motor skill (FMS) proficiency; and that differences in FMS proficiency are largely related to children's experiences. Aim: To examine associations between participation in different types of recreation/ leisure and FMS proficiency of boys and girls in their first year of school. We hypothesized that there would be positive associations between FMS proficiency and participation in organized sport, physical activities, and active physical recreation; but not for other types of recreation/leisure. Method: Participants (n ¼ 74) were kindergarten children (Mage ¼ 5y11 m; boys ¼ 55%). Parents completed the diversity dimension of the Children's Assessment of Participation and Enjoyment (CAPE) survey. The CAPE measures children's participation in everyday activities outside of mandated school activities in the past four months in five types of formal and informal activities, specifically: Recreational activities, Physical activities, Social activities, Skill-Based activities, and SelfImprovement activities. Two categories of activities were also reported: Organized Sport and Active Physical Recreation. Locomotor and object control skills were assessed using the Test of Gross Motor Development-2 and static balance was assessed using a stork stand. Sex-based differences in motor skills and participation were examined using chi-squared analyses. Correlation coefficients were used to examine relationships between motor skills and CAPE sub-domains and categories. Linear regression was used to examine whether the type of activity predicted motor skill proficiency and the reverse. Results: There were no sex-based differences in locomotor skills; whereas boys' object control skill scores were significantly higher than girls, and girls' stork stand scores were higher than boys'. Although there were no sex-based differences in the more active categories of recreational pastimes; girls participated in significantly more formal and informal dance and the prevalence of participation in team sports was significantly higher for boys. For boys, participation in physical activities predicted both locomotor and object control skill scores, organized sport predicted object control skills, and active recreation predicted stork stand times and object control skill scores. These relationships were not evident among the girls. Conclusions: These findings illustrate that young children participate in a narrower array of physically active recreational pursuits compared with less active pursuits. There were notable sex-based differences in the relationships between participation and motor skill proficiency. For girls, none of the associations between recreational pastimes and motor skill proficiency were significant. This suggests that the motor proficiency of girls, as assessed in this study, is neither a precursor to, nor an outcome of, participation in active recreational pastimes. Contrastingly, the findings for boys support theory t...

As children transition from early to middle childhood, the relationship between motor skill proficiency and perceptions of physical competence should strengthen as skills improve and inflated early childhood perceptions decrease. This study examined change in motor skills and perceptions of physical competence and the relationship between those variables from kindergarten to grade 2. Participants were 250 boys and girls (Mean age = 5 years 8 months in kindergarten). Motor skills were assessed using the Test of Gross Motor Development-2 and perceptions were assessed using a pictorial scale of perceived competence. Mixed-design analyses of variance revealed there was a significant increase in object-control skills and perceptions from kindergarten to grade 2, but no change in locomotor skills. In kindergarten, linear regression showed that locomotor skills and object-control skills explained 10% and 9% of the variance, respectively, in perceived competence for girls, and 7% and 11%, respectively, for boys. In grade 2, locomotor skills predicted 11% and object-control skills predicted 19% of the variance in perceptions of physical competence, but only among the boys. Furthermore, the relationship between motor skills and perceptions of physical competence strengthened for boys only from early to middle childhood. However, it seems that forces other than motor skill proficiency influenced girls’ perceptions of their abilities in grade 2.

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