Original articleMotivational factors associated with sports program participation in middle school students
Section snippets
Subjects and setting
Subjects were seventh and eighth grade students attending four public middle schools in Colorado, California, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Two participation criteria were established for school selection. First, the community in which the school was located offered a Hershey North American Youth Track and Field Program (HNAYTFP). The HNAYTFP is a free, community-based program sponsored by Hershey Foods Corp. and several national organizations. It provides a “program where children have fun and are
Results
Subject characteristics are presented in Table 1. The percent of recent participants and the racial distributions were similar between genders and grade levels. No data were available for those who declined participation in the study. However, data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicate that the racial distribution of the current sample is similar to that of the entire student populations at the participating schools [25]. Approximately 80% of the students were recent
Discussion
The purposes of this study were to identify gender-specific sports program participation and attrition factors and to identify the associations between sports program participation and physical activity in middle school students. Using a modified version of the Participation Motivation Questionnaire, three factors were identified for sports program participation for both genders. For boys, the factors were competition, social benefits, and fitness. For girls, the factors were social + skill
Acknowledgment
This study was supported by a grant from Hershey Foods Corp. Dr. Sirard is supported by Public Health Service NRSA No. 5 T32 HL 07034 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The authors would like to thank Hershey Foods, Corp. for supporting this research, and the volunteers from Hershey’s North American Track and Field Youth Program. We would also like to thank the students, faculty and staff at the participating schools for participating in this study, and Gaye Christmus for her
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