Measuring sport experiences in children and youth to better understand the impact of sport on health and positive youth development: designing a brief measure for population health surveys

Abstract

BackgroundDespite the proliferation of studies examining youth sport participation, there are significant gaps in knowledge regarding the impact of youth sport participation on health and development. These gaps are not new, but have persisted due to limitations with how sport participation is measured. Much of the research to date has measured sport participation as binary (yes/no) or count measures. This has been especially true in survey-based research. Yet, at the same time, research has investigated youths’ experiences in sport such as the influence of coaches, teammates, and parents. The ability to measure these experiences is constrained by the need to use a number of measures along with gaps in the content covered in existing measures. We propose to develop and test the Sport Experiences Measure: Children and Youth (SEM:CY) as a population survey-based measure that captures the salient aspects of youths’ experience in sport.MethodsThe SEM:CY will be developed and tested across three phases. Phase I includes qualitative research with members of the sport community and engagement with an expert group to generate and obtain feedback on the initial item pool. In Phase II will recruit two consecutive samples of students from schools to complete the draft measure. Analysis will focus on assessing the items and factor structure of the measure. Factor structure will be assessed first with exploratory factor analysis and then confirmatory factor analysis. In phase III we will test the association between the SEM:CY with a measure of perceived competence, sport anxiety, and positive youth development to assess construct validity. We will also examine whether the structure of the measure varies by age or gender.DiscussionThe SEM:CY measure will provide a meaningful contribution to the measurement and understanding of youth sport participation. The SEM:CY can be used as a stand-alone measure to understand youth experiences in sport programs, or in combination with other health and development measures to better understand how youth sport can contribute to both positive and negative outcomes.

Motivational Climate in Sport Is Associated with Life Stress Levels, Academic Performance and Physical Activity Engagement of Adolescents

“…In the same way, various previous studies have been conducted, which have taken the same approach. These include studies conducted in References [38,39,40,41,42].…”

“…These data coincide with studies previously conducted in the adolescent context [50,51,52], with a task climate being found to be related with regular participation in physical activity. This is due to the aforementioned motivational climate being related with enjoyment when participating in physical activity and the subsequent greater adherence to physical activity or sport [40,53]. Alternatively, an ego climate is associated with greater competitiveness, causing individuals to value competition and the attainment of positive results [45].…”

Do sporting experiences predict team cohesion in youth athletes?

“…In the literature, we can find a variety studies about team cohesion interacting with basic psychological needs (Silveira & Oliveira, 2017), motivation (Eys et al, 2013), coach-athlete relationship (Alzate & Lázaro,2007) and sport performance (Benson, Šiška, Eys, Priklerova, & Slepička, 2016). Further, we can find the PYD interacting with variables such as ideal development (Franco & Rodrigues, 2014), coaches' role (Vierimaa, Bruner & Côté, 2018; Santos, Côrte-Real, Regueiras, Dias & Fonseca, 2016) and sports experience (Cairney et al, 2018). However, we found only two studies investigating the association between team cohesion and PYD.…”

‘Just Let Them Play’: Complex Dynamics in Youth Sport, Why It Isn’t So Simple

“…As an example, there are a number of popular memes in lay coaching culture such as “let them play,” broadly conveying the idea that adult input interferes with the quality of experience for children in youth sport ( Lynch, 2016 ; Cairney et al, 2018 ). Many similar ideas are prominent on social media, a growing source of information for the wider coaching population ( Stoszkowski and Collins, 2016 ).…”