Sports activities in a psychosocial perspective: Preliminary analysis of adolescent participation in sports challenges

Abstract

As the literature is far from being unanimous in regards to the psychosocial benefits of sports practice, we conducted a preliminary qualitative study with nine teenagers who participated in a group sporting challenge to better understand: (1) youths’ perceptions regarding the program’s most important dimensions and (2) its effects in the physical, psychological and social spheres of their life. Following these results, we highlighted six driving principles we consider to be significant to interventions involving sports as a tool for psychosocial development: (1) cooperation amongst youth; (2) facilitators’ discipline, direct involvement and positive attitude; (3) moving the youths beyond their physical, psychological and social comfort zones; (4) the interplay between enjoyment and effort; (5) constant innovation in training content; (6) risk as a driving force for cohesion and social ties.

Stress Regulation, Physical Activity, and Perseverance in Spanish Teenagers with Perfectionist Trends

“…The literature describes perseverance as persistence and tenacity in achieving one's goals, and points out the efforts of young students to adapt and their influence on both stress responses [20] and well-being responses [21]. This dimension is said to be connected to tendencies to experience job satisfaction, allowing a higher probability of academic success [22], sporting performance [23][24][25], and professional success [26] as a result of the involvement and commitment of each individual, as well as greater positivity with regards to performance [27] or to attitudes towards learning and PA practice [28].…”

“Life is more important than football”: Comparative analysis of Tweets and Facebook comments regarding the cancellation of the 2015 African Cup of Nations in Morocco

“…Our analysis also considered the quantitative dimension of social media comments. Thus, the frequency of categories appearing in tweets and Facebook comments has been considered in our analysis (our approach allowed for Facebook comments or tweets to be counted several times due to the polysemy of the posts), as we postulate that a theme has more weight when it appears with greater frequency (Moreau et al, 2014). Nevertheless, this quantitative analysis supports the qualitative approach of our article and does not constitute a mixed analysis.…”

Exploring Buyer Motivation to Improve Management, Marketing, Sales, and Finance Practices in the Martial Arts Industry

“…Study findings indicate that the flexibility of asynchronous participation, combined with the opportunity for individual achievement and nondependence on other players, is a strong purchase motivation. The flexible nature of martial arts classes and ease of attendance may provide an alternative to team sports as a fitness activity, which could potentially overcome a major factor in children under 13 dropping out of fitness activities-difficulty in attending multiple activities and providing activity for multiple children (Moreau et al, 2014).…”

“…Study findings and research indicate that parents strongly value the asynchronous nature of martial arts attendance requirements and the opportunity to sample martial arts classes prior to committing to enrollment (Nelson, 2013;Zaggelidou et al, 2013;Zou et al, 2014). Difficulties in attending multiple activities and inflexible participation requirements are among the leading causes of preteen children dropping out of extracurricular fitness-based activities (Moreau et al, 2014). Martial arts business owners should use this information to create marketing messages that explain the ease of martial arts participation and ability to try classes with little commitment.…”