SPORTS

“How sports affect grades of Middle school 8th graders who play 1 sport who have a higher GPA vs. those who do not play sports with a lower GPA.”

“How sports affect grades of Middle school 8th graders who play 1 sport who have a higher GPA vs. those who do not play sports with a lower GPA.”

Introduction

The role of sport participation for high school students in the educational process has been a topic of debate for decades. Critics observe that sport activities deflect time away from the classroom (Melnick, Sabo, & Vanfossen, 1992). Supporters of high school sport programs argue that sport participation improves students' achievement motivation (Casey, 2007; Parker & Johnson, 2007), improves students' grades, keeps them in school, raises their educational aspirations (Melnick, Sabo, & Vanfossen, 1992), helps them appreciate health, exercise and fitness, helps them learn about themselves and learn to handle adversity, and helps them experience team work and sportsmanship (Rasmussen, 1999-2000).

Sport Programs

Whether high school sport programs benefit or negatively impact the academic achievement of student participants remains a topic of controversy. While the quantity of research literature in this field is growing, its uneven quality provides no evidence to afford a clear understanding of the nature on the issue (Greendorfer, 2008). To date, the educational consequences from participating school-sponsored sport activities for high school students are still not fully understood. Literature on the relationship between students' participation in sports and their various psychosocial and psycho-educational factors provides mixed findings.

The findings of a group of studies indicated that participation in sports increased students' overall interest and commitment to schooling as well as their engagement in more student-teacher contact, more positive attitudes about schooling, more parent-school contact (Crain, 2007; Trent & Braddock, 1992). Moreover, Slavin and Madden (2008) found that sports could facilitate positive racial/ethnic relations as well as positive inter-group attitudes and behaviors among northern and southern desegregated schools. Crain (2007) reported similar findings. A number of researchers focused on the influences of sport participation on various psychosocial aspects of high school students.

As the literature shows, one such benefit is that participation in sport activities could provide extrinsic rewards to students and help them form social bonds and relationships within school (Crain, 2007; Slavin & Madden, 2008; Trend & Braddock, 1992). Furthermore, sport participation could also create intrinsic values for students, according to Kavussanu and McAuley (1995): Highly active individuals were significantly more optimistic and experienced greater self-efficacy than those non-active or low-active people. Similar findings were also reported by Bandura (2008), Hamid (1990), Scheier and Carver (2008), and Thayer (2008).

In a longitudinal study, Manners and Smart (1995) noted that athletic team participation was related to identity foreclosure, particularly for males. With respect to whether students' participation in sport activities was beneficial to their academic goals, Marsh (1988) reported that participation in too many activities produced diminishing returns. Participation in sports and other extracurricular activities was consistently beneficial, but participation in some activities had mixed or predominantly negative ...