A new perspective on adolescent athletes’ transition into upper secondary school : A longitudinal mixed methods study protocol

The challenge of combining elite sport and education into a dual career pathway remains to be a source of concern for many high-performance athletes. Previous research findings suggest that committed participation in both domains is highly demanding and success in one pursuit often comes at the expense of the other. There are emergent studies, however, that argue for the beneficial and complementary nature of dual career pathways. Consequently, we emphasize the importance of understanding the processes underlying differences in the development of athletes’ life trajectories. This article presents a study protocol to explore new methodological and analytical approaches that may extend curren…

Development of junior high school students' fundamental movement skills and physical activity in a naturalistic physical education setting

Background: There is evidence showing that fundamental movement skills and physical activity are related with each other. The ability to perform a variety of fundamental movement skills increases the likelihood of children participating in different physical activities throughout their lives. However, no fundamental movement skill interventions implemented with junior high school students have yet been reported. Purpose: To investigate the changes in students' locomotor, manipulative, and balance skills and their level of self-reported physical activity during the specific intervention program aiming to increase students' fundamental movement skills in Finnish junior high school physical ed…

The associations between seventh grade Finnish students’ motivational climate, perceived competence, self-determined motivation, and fundamental movement skills

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationships between motivational climate, perceived competence, self-determined motivation towards physical education (PE) and the fundamental movement skills of Finnish secondary school students. A sample of 370 seventh-grade PE students (girls n = 189; boys n = 181; mean age = 13.08; SD = 0.25) completed measures pertaining to motivational climates, perceived competence, regulation of motivation, and fundamental movement skills. Path analysis revealed results generally consistent with the theoretical tenets of the self-determination and the achievement goal theories by demonstrating that a task-involving motivational climate influenced percei…

Differences in the Motor Coordination Abilities Among Adolescent Gymnasts, Swimmers, and Ice Hockey Players

AbstractPurpose. Motor coordination is proposed to be a relatively stable age-related construct, unlikely to be influenced by aligned experiential factors such as intensive sport-specific training. The purpose of the study is to investigate if there are differences in motor coordination abilities among young artistic gymnasts, swimmers, and ice hockey players.Methods. The participants of the study were 508 female and 258 male adolescents (age, M = 12.80, SD = 1.10) comprising artistic gymnasts (n = 463), swimmers (n = 70), and ice hockey players (n = 233). The KTK-test protocol was used to analyse their gross motor coordination abilities.Results. The results of the study demonstrated that g…

Fundamental Movement Skills and Motivational Factors Influencing Engagement in Physical Activity

To assess whether subgroups based on children's fundamental movement skills, perceived competence, and self-determined motivation toward physical education vary with current self-reported physical activity, a sample of 316 Finnish Grade 7 students completed fundamental movement skills measures and self-report questionnaires assessing perceived competence, self-determined motivation toward physical education, and current physical activity. Cluster analysis indicated a three-cluster structure: “Low motivation/low skills profile,” “High skills/low motivation profile,” and “High skills/ high motivation profile.” Analysis of variance indicated that students in the third cluster engaged in signi…

Relations among physical activity patterns, lifestyle activities, and fundamental movement skills for Finnish students in grade 7.

To investigate the relations among leisure time physical activity and in sport clubs, lifestyle activities, and the locomotor, balance manipulative skills of Grade 7 students participating in Finnish physical education at a secondary school in central Finland completed self-report questionnaires on their physical activity patterns at leisure time and during sport club participation, and time spent watching television and using the computer and other electronic media. Locomotor skills were analyzed by the leaping test, balance skills by the flamingo standing test, and manipulative skills by the accuracy throwing test. Analysis indicated physical activity in sport clubs positively explained …

Urheilijoiden kaksoisuraan liittyvän tutkimuksen tämänhetkinen tilanne Suomessa

Urheilijan kaksoisura tarkoittaa huippu-urheilun ja opiskelun/ koulutuksen yhdistämistä. Tämä helpottaa urheilijan siirtymistä urheilu-uralta työmarkkinoille. Vaikka kansainvälisen tutkimuksen mukaan useimmat huippu-urheilijat pitävät koulutusta tärkeänä, he useimmiten asettavat urheilu-uran etusijalle yrittäessään sovittaa harjoittelun ja kilpailemisen asettamat vaatimukset koulutusjärjestelmien vaatimuksiin ja rajoituksiin. Tutkimusten mukaan monet lahjakkaat eurooppalaisurheilijat usein joko lopettavat urheilu-uransa panostaakseen koulutukseen ja sitä kautta työllistymiseen tai viivästyttävät tutkinnon hankkimista keskittyäkseen kokonaan urheiluun. Kysymys on otettu osaksi EU:n strategis…

Training programme for novice physical activity instructors using Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR) model : a programme development and protocol

Previous research indicates that programmes employing Hellison?s Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR) model in physical activity have had a positive impact on youth development by increasing participants? positive values, autonomy, life skills, and prosocial behaviour. Despite encouraging results of the effects of TPSR-based programmes, there remains lack of research on the effective content of these programmes, and their implementation and evaluation. The current protocol article describes the development of a TPSR-based instructor training programme and a plan for an intervention study in which novice instructors learn to understand and apply the TPSR model in practice. The …

The associations among fundamental movement skills, self-reported physical activity and academic performance during junior high school in Finland.

The purpose of this study was to analyse the longitudinal associations between (1) fundamental movement skills (FMSs) and academic performance, and (2) self-reported physical activity and academic performance through junior high school in Finland. The participants of the study were 325 Finnish students (162 girls and 163 boys), who were 13 years old at the beginning of the study at Grade 7. Students performed three FMS tests and responded to a self-reported physical activity questionnaire at Grades 7 and 8. Marks in Finnish language, mathematics and history from Grades 7, 8 and 9 were collected. Structural equation modelling with multigroup method demonstrated that in the boys' group, a cor…

Fundamental movement skills, physical activity, and motivation toward Finnish school physical education : a fundamental movement skills intervention