Perception of purpose and parental involvement in competitive youth sport

Abstract

<b>Background</b><br /> Because of the various demanding investments, parents develop various expectations regarding their children’s sport experience. The purposes of this study were twofold: (a) to determine whether there is a discrepancy between parents and athletes in terms of perception of purpose for engaging in youth sport, and (b) to explore whether the reported discrepancies impact parental involvement.<br /> <br /> <b>Participants and procedure</b><br /> Participants included 25 club level athletes (19 girls, 6 boys), ages 13-17 (M = 14.96 years, SD = 1.49 years), and 24 pa­rents (18 women, 6 men) of these athletes, ages 39-55 (M = 48.26 years, SD = 4.44 years) from both individual and team sports. Parents and athletes completed their respective versions of both the Participation Motivation Questionnaire (PMQ) and Parental Involvement in Sport Questionnaire (PISQ). Optional individual interviews with 12 athletes and 12 parents were then conducted to further triangulate perceptions of purpose and parental involvement in youth sport.<br /> <br /> <b>Results</b><br /> Findings included four statistically significant negative correlations between the PMQ and PISQ, as well as a statistically significant discrepancy between parents and athletes on one subscale of the PMQ (p = .026). Also, statistically significant discrepancies were found between perceived and desired levels of parental involvement on three out of four subscales of the PISQ (there are 3 exact p-values since there were significant discrepancies for 3 out of the 4 subscales. They are: Directive Behavior: p < .001, Praise and Understanding: p = .042 and Pressure: p = .025).<br /> <br /> <b>Conclusions</b><br /> Perceptions of parental involvement between the parents and their children were not congruent. Similarly, the parents and their children perceive why an athlete participates in sport somewhat differently. If further explored, parent-athlete relations and interactions could be improved to facilitate optimal youth sport participation.

The Role of Parental Involvement in Youth Sport Experience: Perceived and Desired Behavior by Male Soccer Players

“…Regarding the levels of satisfaction, our findings showed excessive active involvement, insufficient praise and understanding, but satisfactory directive behavior on the part of parents; this result is not in line with Marsh et al [44] who reported that active involvement and praise and understanding were positively correlated in club level swimmers and volleyball, soccer, and hockey players. Moreover, young athletes referred excessive levels of parent pressure, which is potentially related to excessive parental involvement.…”

“…The present findings are in line with Sánchez-Miguel et al [22], but not with other studies [39,44] where all of the athletes desired more parental pressure but, in specializing years, they desired more parental praise and understanding. Parental involvement is perceived differently by the athletes in each athletic development phase, and it can become more salient over the years [45][46][47].…”

Parental Involvement in Youth Sports: Perceived and Desired Behaviour by Children

“…Furthermore, a lower active involvement could decrease pressure discrepancy and increase the satisfaction level by children. Sánchez-Miguel et al (2013) agree with our findings, however, in other studies (Giannitsopoulou et al, 2010;Marsh et al, 2015) it seems the opposite situation and, in general, all the athletes desired more parental pressure. In specializing years, athletes desired more praise and understanding.…”

“…The second purpose was to examine children's satisfaction or dissatisfaction with any specific behaviour represented by discrepancies between ratings of perceived and desired behaviour. Findings showed excessive Active Involvement, insufficient Praise and Understanding, but satisfactory Directive Behaviour on the part of parents; this disagrees with Marsh, Zavilla, Acuna, and Poczwardowski (2015) who found that active involvement and praise and understanding were positively correlated. Also, children experienced excessive levels of parent pressure.…”

The Effects of Parents’ and Their Children’s Characteristics on Parental Involvement in Sport

“…The child's sport participation stage was found to predict DB. Previous findings show that junior athletes pursuing certain sports (e.g., gymnastics, football) have a need for less intense parental control and pressure (Giannitsopoulou et al, 2010;Mastrorilli & Greco, 2020), while those engaging in other sports are generally satisfied (e.g., swimming; see Rodis, 2013) or need more intense parental involvement than they receive (e.g., ice hockey; see Ede, Kamphoff, Mackey, & Armentrout, 2012;Marsh et al, 2015). Sport-specific differences in the pace of progress may be an important factor underlying these differences, among others.…”