Physical Activity: Using Concept Mapping to Sustain Participation in Youth Sport

描述(申请人提供)：体力活动对儿童和青春期的正常成长至关重要，但有一种流行的比例没有达到国家体力活动指南，这在一定程度上导致了全国最超重和最肥胖的一代儿童。学校赞助的体育活动并不是解决儿童和青少年缺乏活动的斗争的办法；因此，课外时间获得的体育活动对儿童和青少年的健康发展至关重要。青少年体育是一种课后促进家庭参与的健康促进活动，具有显著的生物、心理和社会效益，可以成为获得推荐体力活动水平的一种有趣和愉快的手段。事实上，青少年体育项目为体育活动创造了更广泛的社区支持，因为它们吸引了许多利益相关者-儿童和青少年、父母、教练和创造动态体育活动体验的家庭。然而，青少年体育运动的流失率高得惊人--每年有多达三分之一的儿童退出青少年体育运动，到青春期将有多达70%的儿童退出。因此，需要进行研究，以确定青年持续参与体育运动的决定因素和障碍。概念图是一种归纳的混合方法，它通过生成可视化地图来同时概念化利益攸关方面临的经验和障碍，这些地图显示了主要因素的数据，它们是如何相互关联的，利益攸关方群体之间的相似和不同，因素如何随时间变化，以及最重要和最可行的干预因素。此外，概念图自然会导致和指导评估度量的发展。这项拟议研究的总体目标是利用概念图建立一个强有力的概念框架，以促进我们对与最佳做法和障碍有关的潜在机制的理解，以维持家庭和发展儿童(8-18岁)参与青年运动。因此，为了实现我们的目标，我们的项目被系统地组织为三个阶段，每个阶段都针对我们的研究目标：(1)确定影响儿童、父母和教练如何概念化他们参与青少年体育活动的经验和障碍的因素并确定差异；(2)为上述利益相关者开发和验证参与体育活动中参与经验和障碍的客观多维衡量标准；以及(3)利用这些新开发和验证的参与性体育体验和障碍衡量标准，预测青少年体育运动的一年消耗量。这将是第一个创新性地将概念图应用于体育活动和运动参与研究的研究。这种独特的数据将对制定青年体育可持续发展模式至关重要，并将有助于设计和测试适合具体发展和性别的有效的青年体育可持续发展干预措施。完成我们的目标将通过加深我们对如何通过有组织的青少年运动成功地让儿童、他们的家庭和社区参与健康和积极的生活方式的理解，促进我们促进健康和预防疾病的能力。 与公共健康相关：体育活动对儿童和青少年的正常成长和发展至关重要；然而，有一大部分青少年没有达到建议的最低体力活动准则，这导致了全世界最超重和最肥胖的一代青年。解决这一公共卫生危机的一种办法是让儿童继续参与有组织的青年运动，这是一项促进家庭参与的健康促进活动，儿童从中获得重大的生物、心理和社会效益。该项目的成功完成将促进对青少年体育消耗决定因素的科学认识，并进一步推动公共卫生实践，通过青少年参与体育活动促进和促进儿童、其家庭和社区健康和积极的生活方式。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Physical activity is vital to the normal growth of children and adolescence yet an epidemic proportion do not meet national physical activity guidelines, which in part has lead to the nation's most overweight and obese generation of children. School-sponsored physical activity has not been a solution in fighting the battle of inactivity among children and adolescents; thus, physical activity acquired during after-school hours is critical to the healthy development of children and adolescents. Youth sport is an after-school family-engaging health promoting activity with significant biopsychosocial benefits that can be a fun and enjoyable means of acquiring recommended levels of physical activity. In fact, youth sport programs create a broader community support for physical activity because they engage many stakeholders - children and adolescents, parents, coaches, and families creating a dynamic physical activity experience. However, attrition from youth sport is alarmingly high - as many as 1/3 of children drop out of youth sport annually and as many as 70% will drop out by adolescence. Therefore, research is needed to identify the determinants and barriers to sustained participation in youth sport. Concept mapping is an inductive mixed-methodology which simultaneously conceptualizes the experiences and barriers facing stakeholders by producing visual maps which display data about the major factors, how they are interrelated, similarities and differences among stakeholder groups, how factors change over time, and factors of greatest importance and feasibility for intervention. Further, concept mapping naturally leads to and guides evaluation metric development. The overall goal of this proposed study is to use concept mapping to develop a robust conceptual framework to further our understanding of underlying mechanisms related to best-practices and barriers in order to sustain the family and developing child's (8-18 years old) participation in youth sport. Consequently, to achieve our goals, our project is systematically organized into three phases, each addressing our study aims: (1) to identify factors and determine differences in how children, parents, and coaches conceptualize their experiences and barriers associated with their participation in youth sport; (2) to develop and validate objective multidimensional measures of participatory experiences and barriers in organized sport for the aforementioned stakeholders; and, in turn (3) to predict 1-year attrition from youth sport using these newly developed and validated measures of participatory sport experiences and barriers. This will be the first study to innovatively apply concept mapping to physical activity and sport participation research. Such unique data will be critical to the development of a youth sport sustainability model and will be instrumental in the design and testing of specific-developmentally and gender-appropriate efficacious youth sport sustainability interventions. Completion of our aims will further our ability to advance health promotion and disease prevention by furthering our understanding of how best to successfully engage children, their families, and communities in healthy and active lifestyles through organized youth sport. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Physical activity is vital to the normal growth and development of children and adolescents; however, an epidemic proportion of youth do not meet the minimum recommended physical activity guidelines which has resulted in the most overweight and obese generation of youth worldwide. One approach to addressing this public health crisis is by sustaining children's participation in organized youth sport, which is a family-engaging health promoting activity of which children derive significant biopsychosocial benefits. Successful completion of this project will advance scientific knowledge of determinants of youth sport attrition and further public health practice to promote and engage children, their families, and communities in healthy and active lifestyles through youth sport participation.