The sporting life: Athletic activities during early adolescence

The decline in sports participation that begins in early adolescence has been well documented, and there has been considerable controversy regarding the reasons for this attrition. The present study addressed the attrition process by focusing on the subjective experience of sports as a function of grade, gender, and sport context. Following the procedures of the Experience Sampling Method, 401 5th–9th-grade boys and girls carried electronic pagers, similar to those worn by doctors, for one week, and filled out self-report forms on their activities and subjective states in response to signals received at random times. Older respondents spent less time in sports than their younger peers. This age difference was due primarily to a decline in informal sports participation, with less pronounced attrition from organized sports. Our findings suggest that the reasons for attrition from sport may be context specific. While informal sports were experienced more positively than gym class or organized sports, perceptions of skill were lowest during informal sports and declined with age. It seems youngsters stop participating in organized sports because these activities are less enjoyable to them, while attrition from informal sports is more performance based. Boys spent more time in sports than girls, and this difference was based primarily upon significant gender differences in informal sports participation. In spite of their differential rates of participation, boys and girls reported similar levels of affect, arousal, and skill during sports.This research was supported by NIMH grant number MH38324, Stress in Daily Life During Early Adolescence, awarded to Reed Larson, and was carried out while the first author was a Dissertation Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Loyola University of Chicago.Received Ph.D. in psychology from Loyola University of Chicago. Current research interests include athletic, involvement during early adolescence, body image, and adolescent mental health.Current research interests are stress and coping during early adolescence, and the adaptive use of leisure time.Received Ph.D. from the Committee on Human Development at the University of Chicago. Current research interests include pubertal development, the precursors of eating disorders, and the effects of maternal employment of young adolescents.