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This study examined youth sport dropout and prolonged engagement from a developmental perspective focusing on physical and psychosocial factors. Twenty-five dropout and 25 engaged adolescent swimmers, matched on key demographic variables, participated in a retrospective interview. Results indicated that dropouts were involved in fewer extra-curricular activities, less unstructured swimming play, and received less one-on-one coaching throughout development. Dropouts reached several developmental milestones (i.e., started training camps, started dry land training, and were top in club) earlier than engaged athletes. Dropouts were more likely to have had parents who were high-level athletes in their youth, were more likely to be the youngest in their training group, and were less likely to have a best friend at swimming. Findings are discussed in relation to past research; future directions and implications for researchers, sport programmers, coaches, and parents are suggested.

The theory of deliberate practice (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993) is predicated on the concept that the engagement in specific forms of practice is necessary for the attainment of expertise. The purpose of this paper was to examine the quantity and type of training performed by expert UE triathletes. Twenty-eight UE triathletes were stratified into expert, middle of the pack, and back of the pack groups based on previous finishing times. All participants provided detailed information regarding their involvement in sports in general and the three triathlon sports in particular. Results illustrated that experts performed more training than non-experts but that the relationship between training and performance was not monotonic as suggested by Ericsson et al. Further, experts' training was designed so periods of high training stress were followed by periods of low stress. However, early specialization was not a requirement for expertise. This work indicates that the theory of deliberate practice does not fully explain expertise development in UE triathlon.Participation in ultra-endurance (UE) triathlons has continued to increase since their inception in the late 1970s. Although beginning as a single event designed to test the limits of human endurance and persistence, UE triathlon competition now includes over a dozen events worldwide completed by athletes of all ages and from all walks of life. Sport scientists (e.g., O'Toole, Douglas, & Hiller, 1989;Speechly, Taylor, & Rogers, 1996) have indicated several factors that contribute to success in UE triathlon performance; however, we have no insight on the forms and quantities of practice that influence how UE triathletes develop.Researchers studying the stages of expertise development have provided a number of models to explain the progression from novice to expert. For instance, Bloom (1985) examined expert development in fields ranging from mathematics to swimming and observed that individuals

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Popular stereotypes of aging affect the performance of seniors in a number of different domains, from memory performance to physiological response. The authors undertook a review of this area, in which they examined 17 studies that looked at the impact of stereotype primes on older individuals' cognitive, physical, physiological and psychological performance. Analyses included investigating the effects of both positive and negative age stereotypes, and implicit and explicit priming methodologies. The authors utilized a meta-analytic technique on a subset of studies that examined the impact of priming on memory performance. This yielded an effect size of 0.38. The results suggest that popular stereotypes of aging (and the corresponding subtle changes in the testing environment) are important variables to consider for those researchers testing performance of seniors.

Sport has been identified as a context in which youth encounter positive and negative experiences. However, relatively little is known about the factors that lead to positive and negative personal development among sport participants. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of enjoyment and motivational climate on positive and negative personal development of team sport participants. A sample of 510 athletes between the ages of 9 and 19 completed questionnaires on positive and negative personal development, enjoyment, and motivational climate. Stepwise multiple regression analyses examined the effects of enjoyment and motivational climate on the personal development of the athletes. Results demonstrated that positive experiences in sport were most strongly predicted by affiliation with peers, self-referenced competency, effort expenditure, and a task climate. Negative experiences were most strongly predicted by an ego climate and other-referenced competency. Results suggest that creating an environment that encourages peer affiliation and personal achievement can result in the positive personal development of youth sport participants.Sport has been identified as the most popular structured activity for youth participation (Mahoney, Larson, Eccles, & Lord, 2005). Recently, Guèvremont, Findlay, and Kohen (2008) reported that approximately 76% of Canadian youth between the ages of 6 and 17 years participated in at least one structured sport activity in the past year. In the United States, it is estimated that approximately 62% of high school students participated on at least one school or nonschool sport team in the Personal Development Through Sport 33 previous year (Pate, Trost, Levin, & Dowda, 2000). These data demonstrate that the majority of North American youth have some experience with organized sport. Weiss and Williams (2004) summarized the reasons why youth participate in sport. They suggested that youth participate for reasons of physical competence/ adequacy (i.e., improve skills, achieve goals), social acceptance (i.e., make new friends, team atmosphere), and enjoyment (i.e., energy release, excitement). These reasons point to the complexity of youth sport involvement, and demonstrate that individual (i.e., enjoyment) and environmental (i.e., team atmosphere) factors are important for understanding participation. Weiss and Williams concluded that participation in youth sport can be enhanced by (a) making sure the sport is enjoyable, (b) creating a task-oriented motivational climate, (c) providing social support, and (d) helping children help themselves. These recommendations highlight enjoyment and motivational climate as critical factors for prolonged participation of youth in sport. The following paragraphs elaborate on the relationship between enjoyment, motivational climate and youth sport.Enjoyment is consistently associated with continued sport participation (Scanlan, Carpenter, Schmidt, Simons, & Keeler, 1993;Scanlan, Stein, & Ravizza, 1989;Weiss, Kimmel, & Smith, 2001;Wiersma, 200...