学校体育政策外文文献

Is school sport associated with school belongingness Testing the infl uence of school sport policy Gareth J Jonesa Moonsup Hyuna Michael B Edwardsb Jonathan Casperb Jason N Bocarrob James Lynchc aTemple University School of Sport Tourism and Hospitality Management 1810 N 13th St Philadelphia PA 19122 United States bNorth Carolina State University Department of Parks Recreation and Tourism Management Biltmore Hall Campus Box 8004 Raleigh NC 27695 United States cDrexel University School of Education 3025 Market St Philadelphia PA 19104 United States A R T I C L E I N F O Article history Received 4 February 2019 Received in revised form 16 December 2019 Accepted 17 December 2019 Available online xxx Keywords School sport Sport policy School belongingness Youth sport A B S T R A C T One of the primary justifi cations for middle school sport is the presumed association between sport participation and school belongingness However concerns regarding school sport values have called this association into question Previous researchers have focused primarily on school sport as a single entity with far less consideration for the different policies available to guide sport management and delivery in the school context The authors examine the association between sport participation and school belongingness under two sport policies i e interscholastic and intramural Moderated mediation analysis is used to examine the relationships underpinning this connection in both policy contexts Results indicate differences across policy contexts related to the salience of perceived sport and academic competence The discussion highlights intriguing implications for sport administrators regarding school sport policy particularly as it pertains to promoting school belongingness Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand 1 Introduction In the United States middle school sport is one of the most popular activities during early adolescence and a potentially viable context for promoting physical mental and social development Knifsend and physical traits such as increased physical activity and healthy lifestyles Ullrich French Wennberg Gustafsson Dunstan Wennberg Upadyaya Casper Bocarro Kanters Stewart et al 2005 For example a national study in 1993 found that 67 of middle schools offered intramural sport programs compared to 77 who offered interscholastic programs McEwin Dickinson Gould Eccles et al 1993 Eccles Kelly et al 2012 leading to growing interest among researchers and administrators regarding how to promote school belongingness during this critical period Although initially believed to subvert academic pursuits Marsh 1992 research by developmental psychologists indicates middle school sports provide viable settings to promote school belongingness The theoretical support for this association has drawn largely from psychological perspectives For example Hirschi 1969 social bonding theory laid the foundation for the identifi cation participation Finn 1989 and school membership Wehlage Rutter Smith Lesko McEwin Swaim Wang Fredricks Goodenow Eccles et al 1993 SEFT is based on Hunt s 1975 person environment fi t theory which posits human development occurs through reciprocal interactions between a person and the evolving people objects and symbols in their immediate environment Hunt 1975 According to SEFT individuals are more likely to develop feelings of school belongingness when the core needs of their developmental stage fi t with supportive resources offered in the school environment Eccles et al 1993 In the US matriculation from elementary to middle school typically coincides with the transition from late childhood to early adolescent stages of development In fact the establishment of middle schools in the early 20thcentury was specifi cally intended to create supportive environments that matched the developmental needs of youth during this critical transitional period McEwin Scales 1991 In addition to building positive goal orientations continually demonstrating competence builds a sense of self effi cacy and identity that is key to developing and sustaining psychosocial development into later stages of adolescence Swanson Spencer Lee Burgeson Fulton Wagnsson Lindwall Stewart et al 2005 Moreover critics suggest the growing emphasis on competition has created environments that only reward performance oriented competence with some interscholastic teams described as farm systems for high schools where the development of skills tactics and win at all costs attitudes take precedent over educational values such as school belongingness McEwin Child Trends 2019 Based on SEFT this signifi cantly infl uences the perceived fi t between adolescent s ability and sport settings Eccles et al 1993 Adolescents who feel they fi t within sport settings are more likely to meet core developmental needs and internalize feelings of school belongingness Eccles et al 1993 However adolescents who feel they do not fi t within sport settings are less likely to meet core developmental needs Eccles et al 1993 According to Eccles et al 1993 these negative consequences are especially dramatic when the current environment affords fewer opportunities than those they were previously exposed to From this perspective middle school sport policies that prioritize interscholastic sport programs over intramural sport programs may reinforce the already mounting salience of perceived sport competence within sport settings In other words students who have the ability to demonstrate competence in highly selective interscholastic settings are more likely to perceive a fi t within these environments that enhances school belongingness Eccles et al 1993 Conversely students who are unable to demonstrate competence in interscholastic settings or excluded from them altogether are more likely to perceive a mismatch with the environment that reduces their perceived fi t Eccles et al 1993 From this perspective the sport policy of a particular school may infl uence the association between sport participation and school belongingness by altering perceptions of fi t within sport environments thus leading to our fi rst set of hypotheses Hypothesis 1 Perceived sport competence mediates the positive association between sport participation and school belongingness Hypothesis 1a The indirect effect of sport participation on school belongingness through perceived sport competence is stronger in schools with interscholastic sport policies compared to schools with intramural sport policies Opportunities to demonstrate competence are not restricted to sport and previous research has outlined the importance of demonstrating competence in other domains as well e g social academic Harter 1982 When focused specifi cally on the relationship between sport participation and school belongingness perceived academic competence represents an important domain of study Nottelmann 1987 Sport participation is thought to be especially important for students who struggle academically Finn 1989 Due to their proximity and affi liation to educational resources school sports provide valuable opportunities to establish competence in school based settings Trudeau McEwin race 0 Racial Minority 1 White socio economic status 0 No Free Lunch 1 Free Lunch School belongingness was measured using the 18 item Psychological Sense of School Membership PSSM scale Goodenow 1993 Students responded to each item by rating how true the corresponding statement was on a 5 point Likert scale ranging from 1 Not true at all to 5 Completely true Example items include I feel like a real part of this school and People at this school are friendly to me Perceived sport competence and academic competence were measured by adapting two 6 item measures from Harter s 1982 Perceived Competence Scale for Children PCSC Example items include I do very well at all kinds of sports and I feel like I m just as smart as other kids my age For both sets of questions students were asked How well do each of the following statements describe you and used a Likert scale ranging from 1 Does not describe me at all to 4 Describes me very well to record their responses The Cronbach s alpha for each scale 686 811 indicated acceptable internal reliability 3 4 Analysis All analyses were conducted using R R Core Team 2013 The moderated mediation analyses included the average scores of sport competence academic competence and school belongingness measures and dichotomous variables of sport participation gender race and SES The mediating effect of sport competence was examined based on 95 bias corrected bootstrapping confi dence intervals Iteration 5000 following Hayes 2017 recommendation Three regressions were conducted with the full sample interscholastic school sample and intramural school sample respectively The statistical signifi cance of differences between path coeffi cients for the two policy specifi c regression analyses i e interscholastic vs intramural schools were tested using z tests in R Clogg Ptkova Cohen Cohen West Pasternoster Brame Mazerolle Zhao Lynch see Nicholson Slater Chriqui AC academic competence SC sports competence SB school belongingness p 05 Table 3 Direct Effects and Group Differences Path B Z value or 95 bias corrected CI Full sample SP SC 265 348 11 900 Interscholastic SP SC 299 398 10 657 Intramural SP SC 231 302 6 657 Difference Interscholastic Intramural 067 095 1 510 Full sample SC SB 170 159 6 382 Interscholastic SC SB 214 201 5 962 Intramural SC SB 116 108 2 980 Difference Interscholastic Intramural 097 093 1 856 Full sample SP SB 108 132 4 625 Interscholastic SP SB 106 132 3 430 Intramural SP SB 132 160 3 657 Difference Interscholastic Intramural 026 028 552 Full sample AC SB 354 358 11 780 Interscholastic AC SB 361 355 9 375 Intramural AC SB 357 373 7 880 Difference Interscholastic Intramural 005 018 081 Full sample mcSC mcAC SB 049 076 1 722 Interscholastic mcSC mcAC SB 105 160 2 697 Intramural mcSC mcAC SB 005 007 118 Difference Interscholastic Intramural 109 167 1 974 Full sample SP mcAC SB 056 106 1 731 Interscholastic SP mcAC SB 070 134 1 545 Intramural SP mcAC SB 052 096 1 168 Difference Interscholastic Intramural 019 038 297 Notes N 1717 SP Sport participation AC academic competence SC sports competence SB school belongingness p 05 G J Jones et al Sport Management Review xxx 2019 xxx xxx 7 G Model SMR 598 No of Pages 12 Please cite this article in press as G J Jones et al Is school sport associated with school belongingness Testing the infl uence of school sport policy Sport Management Review 2019 https doi org 10 1016 j smr 2019 12 003 In addition the results of z tests indicated that academic competence positively moderated the indirect relationship between sport participation and school belongingness in interscholastic schools Dindirect effect 073 BootLLCI 024 BootULCI 133 but not in intramural schools Dindirect effect 002 BootLLCI 044 BootULCI 040 Specifi cally the results indicated that the positive effect of sport participation on school belongingness was signifi cantly stronger for students with high academic competence indirect effect 116 BootLLCI 079 BootULCI 166 than students with low academic competence indirect effect 043 BootLLCI 008 BootULCI 085 in interscholastic schools However in intramural schools there was no statistical difference in the magnitude of the indirect effect of sport participation on school belongingness between students with high academic competence indirect effect 031 BootLLCI 007 BootULCI 065 and low academic competence indirect effect 034 BootLLCI 003 BootULCI 072 This fi nding does not support Hypothesis 2a and actually indicates the opposite effect to what was hypothesized Table 2 provides the detailed results of hypothesis testing and Table 3 shows the path coeffi cients of direct effects 5 Discussion The connection between school sport and school belongingness is ostensibly one of the core values of school based athletics yet represents a key unexamined assumption requiring further inquiry This entails going beyond single entity conceptualizations of sport to consider how school sport policies might infl uence perceptions of fi t within school sport environments Although the presumed connection to school belongingness is often championed as one of the primary justifi cations for school sport the effi cacy of this assumption has been increasingly called into question This study contributes to that discussion by analyzing the association between sport participation and school belongingness under two sport policies Pertaining to the fi rst set of hypotheses the results indicate notable differences between interscholastic and intramural schools related to the association between sport participation and school belongingness Sport competence partially mediated the association between sport participation and school belongingness in both policy contexts highlighting the importance of perceived sport competence in facilitating the association between sport participation and school belongingness This is consistent with previous literature which highlights the importance of demonstrating competence during early adolescence Curtis 2015 as well as its salience in sport settings Wagnsson et al 2014 However results did reveal one important difference between policy contexts that carries important managerial implications Although the indirect effect of perceived sport competence was signifi cant in both policy contexts the magnitude of this effect was signifi cantly stronger in interscholastic schools compared to intramural schools This is consistent with the hypothesized relationship in our conceptual model and supports SEFT perspectives that suggest perceptions of fi t are more contingent upon perceived sport competence in competitive interscholastic schools While this may be benefi cial for students that have the ability to demonstrate sport competence one must also consider the other side of this equation Based on SEFT the selectivity and competitiveness of the interscholastic environment can also present negative consequences for students who are unable to make the cut for interscholastic teams or have lower perceptions sport competence Indeed only a limited number of students are able to make interscholastic teams and an even smaller percentage receive meaningful playing time to demonstrate competence This means the potential benefi ts of sport may be unnecessarily restricted to a small proportion of the student body Just as positive perceptions of fi t are theorized to enhance perceptions of school belongingness it is important to recognize that perceived mismatches between ability and environment may similarly detract from school belongingness Eccles and Barber 1999 There was evidence of this in the current study as differences in school belongingness between interscholastic and intramural schools varied based on student s perceptions of sport competence Moreover while interscholastic sport policies provide potential benefi ts to students with stronger perceptions of sport competence the competitive climate they create may cause the association between sport participation and school belongingness to become increasingly contingent on athletic success Lapchick 1987 McEwin Sirard Pfeiffer Stewart et al 2005 Perhaps due to the current single entity focus of the fi eld and prevailing assumptions regarding traditional sport programs the effi cacy of alternative sport delivery models such as intramurals are not always considered McEwin Stewart et al 2005 However the results of the current study suggest interscholastic sports might not provide the most viable settings for students who otherwise struggle academically which is a critical element to enhancing perceptions of fi t that promote school belongingness Eccles et al 2003 6 Concluding statements SEFT provides the basis for how the theoretical associations between sport participation perceived sport and academic competence and school belongingness are infl uenced by school sport policy and the results offer important implications for managing middle school sport At this stage of development school sport should be delivered through a mix of interscholastic and intramural sport programs that balance challenging activities with a broader base of participatory outlets Integrated policies that provide a wide breadth of sport activities appeal to a broader proportion of the overall student body and allow administrators to meet the core developmental needs of the greatest number of students Kanters et al 2012 However declines in funding and growing pressure to meet academic targets have made decisions regarding resource allocations increasingly diffi cult Results suggest that while interscholastic sports may be benefi cial for the relatively small proportion of students with high sport competence intramural sport policies offer viable opportunities to promote school belongingness among the broader student body When considering their options administrators should consider the costs associated with different sport policies Interscholastic sports typically require larger fi nancial and administrative investments and when faced with budget reductions at the state and local level school administrators are often forced to utilize alternative sources of funding such as pay to play fees to keep teams afl oat Heinze Goldsmith 2003 Ogden The Council of Economic Advisers 2018 This may be attributable to the growing competitiveness of interscholastic sport Indeed the results of this study suggest the infl uence of perceived sport competence on the association between sport participation and school belongingness was stronger in interscholastic schools compared to intramural schools Although this environment may enhance perceptions of fi t for students with high sport competence it does not provide a solid foundation for students progressing into more selective h