Black high school students' participation in school-sponsored sports activities: Effects on school engagement and achievement

Journal of Negro Education, The, Winter 1999 by Jordan, Will J

As shown in Table V, the effects of sports participation on student achievement (as measured by composite grade 10 test scores) for European American students were almost identical to those for the full sample. The standardized regression coefficients ((beta)s) were the same, but due to the smaller sample size, the t-values were slightly lower for White students. For African American students, the size of the coefficients were similar; however, the results were significant only for team sports ((beta)=.04, t=2.19; p

DISCUSSION

Sports and physical activity can help adolescents who participate in them develop self-efficacy, self-confidence, and feelings of competence by virtue of the mastery of skills and talents that such participation engenders. Like adults, adolescents' sense of pride, along with their self concept, is connected to the degree to which they feel competent performing certain actions. As Chickening (1996) asserts,

. . . experiences encountered in athletics provoke reactions sharply relevant to the development of competence and sense of competence, and to the development of increased ability to manage them productively. Athletics offers a context in which concrete, unequivocal, and public performance provides clear evidence of developmental progress. (p. 29)

The extent to which sports participation bolsters the schooling experiences of student athletes and positively affects student learning is an important question for educational policy, practice, and research. As discussed at the outset, much of the research has addressed the role of athletics in education and in within the broader society, but the extant literature affords little guidance for those seeking a better understanding of the specific relationship between adolescents' participation in school-sponsored sports and various outcomes. Additionally, much of the previous research on sports participation and schooling is limited, primarily as a result of the voluntary nature of extracurricular activities and the inability to eliminate or control for self-selection biases. Analysis of differential effects of sports participation across racial/ethnic groups is also lacking.

To address these gaps in the literature, this study investigated three aspects of the topic: (a) the effects of sport participation on student GPA, self-concept, and academic self-confidence, while holding constant important background characteristics such as SES and gender; (b) racial/ethnic differences, particularly whether or not African American students benefit more from sports participation than do students of other racial/ethnic groups; and (c) the degree to which sports participation affects student achievement, beyond its impact on GPA, self-concept, and academic self confidence. The empirical evidence obtained from the study suggests that participation in sports, regardless of various student background characteristics, offers several benefits to adolescent students.

The finding that most high school students do not participate in school-sponsored sports is perhaps one of the most striking revelations of this study. About 21% of all lOthgrade students were found to participate in team sports of some kind while only 15% were involved in individual sports. For African American students,18% reported having participated in team sports by 10th grade, with nearly 10% having participated in individual sports. This suggests that whatever positive outcomes might have accrued from sports participation, few students realized those benefits. Another major finding was that participation in high school sports had a positive relationship to GPA, self-concept, and academic self-confidence for all students. However, these variables were examined as intermediate dependent variables or precursors, which were affected by sports participation and in turn affected student achievement.