Children, junior and youth sport: Retention

 Youth sport retention is a critical issue for many reasons. Regular physical activity is essential for children's health and well-being. Sport can provide children with valuable life skills such as teamwork, discipline, and goal setting. Sport can help children develop a sense of belonging and identity. However, these things are not guaranteed simply by providing sport, and in this country sport drop out is pronounced during adolesence, and in particular for girls who drop out in greater numbers than boys. There are a number of factors that can contribute to youth sport dropout, and two factors clubs and sport bodies have most control over are the quality and type of coaching, and the nature of the sport experience. In a previous blog here I suggested coaching and game competition emphasis for different age ranges. In this blog, I look at some of thre research we have done and the messages for children and youth sport. 

First, to provide context...

There is around a 30% drop-out rate from children in organised sport aged between 9 and 17

*AusPlay data

By age 17, 50% of girls had dropped out of sport entirely, despite most acknowledging that sport can make them feel more confident.

By age 14, girls are dropping out of sports at x2 the rate of boys.

*2019 Australian Youth Confidence Report 

We know that for girls, the type of unform that sport 'makes' girls play in plays a part in retention or attrition of players.

Children want to play 

MacDougall et al., 2003 suggested that terms such as ‘sport’, ‘play’ and ‘physical activity’ have quite different resonances for children. For most children, sport is something parents/adults want them to do and take them to, play is what children want to do and enjoy doing, and 'physical activity' is something adults want to do. Very few children (<6%) said that they ‘are not into sport’. Importantly, it was found that different activity patterns existed within groups of children. This means, a 'one size fits all' sport delivery model will not meet the physical activity accumulation patterns of all the children. 

Some children are 'sporty' and are attarcted to sport as a means for 'play' and accumulate physical activity playing sport

Some children prefer to 'muck about' as a means of play and acculmulate physical activity by playing 'pick up' and informal games

Some children like to 'roam about' and accumulate physical activity by 'travelling around' 

Some children play as a means to socialise with others and acculmulate physical activity in order to socialise

Parents are key in introducing children to sport, and unlocking continued sport participation with their continued interest during and away from the formal sport setting encouraging their child continuation and connection with the sport and through the sport, and in doing so fostering a shared connection between parent and child.

Attrition from sport seems to occur at an age when the child is able to articulate and argue for discontinutation in sport as the existing pathway is not appealing. That is, the sport pathway does not meet their needs, availability or interests.

Another way parents are key in children playing sport is their choice of coach for their child, and what they accept as 'good coaching'.

Research we have undertaken suggested that the most significant barrier to parents of engagement in organised sports was the associated financial costs, with many parents admitting to not being able to afford increasing sport fees. For those parents 'keen' on sport, this has led to a shift away from formal participation in organised sports towards informal, unstructured play which has significant implications for the nature of sport participation in club sport (the paper is available here)

Other research we have undertaken, showed that disengagement corresponds with changes in level of competition, in particular, the shift in junior sport from the 'three fs' - fun, friends and (f)physical activity (play) to youth sport and competition leagues and ladders, and talent pathways, 'full fields and full rules' (see here)

In a competition engineering investigation, we found that players, parents and coaches preferred the scaled game to the full game experience. The scaled games constructed a better educational experience, and therefore game development, and in doing so meeting a primary motivation for children and youth playing sport - engagement: touching the ball, scoring goals.

The central factor in under 'control' of the club in influencing player decision to continue or attrit is the coach. However, many coaches lack self-awareness with regard to their own coaching performance and are incapable of accurately describing the reasons why they implement particular ways of coaching (see for example, here). 

This led us to propose the Spectrum of Coaching Styles to provide coaches with the declarative and procedural knowledge that can guide their pedagogical (teaching styles) decision making with greater intentionality (see here). Our premise is, the question for coaches, whose work in player game development is essentially pedagogical (teaching) - how do you create experiences which are 'rewarding' in sport settings? Coaching is essentially a pedagogical decision-making process.

If this area interests you and the idea of patnering in research to explore these ideas has appeal, please get in touch here