<p>Interesting study for parents whose daughters play sports.
<a href="http://news.byu.edu/archive07-Jul-GirlsSports.aspx%5B/url%5D">http://news.byu.edu/archive07-Jul-GirlsSports.aspx</a></p>
<p>This is a classic in terms of how survey research can mislead us. </p>
<p>The researchers found that girls who did sports did better in HS and were more likely to complete college. Now, with the caveat that I have not read the original paper, which may have better data better supporting the conclusion of the article, let me point out the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>correlation and causation are NOT the same thing. A survey such as this provides NO evidence that sports makes for better girls. Why? Because the same undiscussed, unrecognized factor, such as higher achievement motivation, could account for both effects. </p></li>
<li><p>more importantly, this research emphatically does not show that forcing more kids into sports would lead to more girls graduating college! It hardly even suggests that, even though one commentator said "“This is pretty powerful evidence that interscholastic sports are worthy of our education dollars,” </p></li>
</ul>
<p>If only the solutions to our educational challenges could be so simple.</p>
<p>Isn't the use of the word "force" a bit much? newmassdad?</p>
<p>Atheletics for both boys and girls are a positive. Sure I'm sure somebody gonna throw out the story of the ahole jock from school and all that, but what about all those other kids who gained from playing or participation in sports? Sports are an overwhelming positive done correctly. They are very much worth the money.</p>
<p>Give me other learning situations where when you fail it isn't the end of the world? Sports teach kids to learn and deal with disappointment as well as success. Sports provide the basis for a work, study and sportsmanship ethic in students simply because they are games.. not life and death. </p>
<p>Again it comes down to the adults running the program, but good people get good results for girls and boys.</p>
<p>Opie, I agree with all of your points, and your post is great, but I'm confused about the "force" word. Did something get deleted somewhere? And the ahole jock- is there something missing from the thread?</p>
<p>"this research emphatically does not show that forcing more kids into sports "</p>
<p>Just wording that newmassdad used. "Encouraging" would have been a better choice, not sounding so against the idea of participation. </p>
<p>The ahole jock thing is we all know of a few people whom aren't the best examples of a student athelete. I'm sure stories abound. </p>
<p>One thing that wasn't mentioned that is definately a positive about girls in sports is the reduction of teen pregnancies that participation in sports helps with. Kids are going to do something good or bad with their time. I'd rather focus on supporting the good things as much as I can...</p>
<p>with both our kids (s and d) we encourage doing something they liked. For our D it was a sampler set of activities. A season here and season there. She finally settled in on horses, swimming and tennis.. All were positive activities which helped her grow.</p>
<p>Eh...speaking as someone given to a healthy amount of cynicism, I don't object to the use of the word "force"....enough parents DO force their kids into various activities for me to feel the use of the word is plenty justified. </p>
<p>With regards to the article...this seems like a "duh" to me. I bet the same is true for any worthwhile organized activity. </p>
<p>Also, not that I have any high-powered proof or anything, but I would hardly say that the girls who played sports in my school were really the girls on the straight and narrow. Sure, they were better off than the kids who did nothing outside of school (again, if I were a betting woman I'd say that that was true of students in almost any extracurricular activity), but, as a whole, they definitely partied plenty hard, objectionably so to most parents, I would think. Even I know that, and you could hardly find someone who was less of a social butterfly (just a really good listener :)). So...yeah. Not totally on board with the "Girl's sports cures all!" theory. Not that I want girl's sports to stop being funded, far from it, but this article is a little over-earnest, in my opinion.</p>
<p>"as a whole, they definitely partied plenty hard,"</p>
<p>and you were there? ;) </p>
<p>I'd have to disagree. That's why I mentioned everybody has a story about a kid or two, but they tend to ignore the others who are pretty dedicated. Yea, a HS soccer team may drop 2-3 kids in a season for various reasons, but don't forget the other 55 girls (varsity, jv, c teams) that are doing the right things. </p>
<p>It's going to depend on the adults involved, both parents and adults. I've told parents the biggest factor they can have in their kids lives is being there for their stuff. Often told by my D "dad you don't have to come" ... then seeing her face when she realizes I'm there.. </p>
<p>Yes, there for all 2 and half hours for the three minutes of her swimming or, as I found out later, hanging around the horse stalls and those wonderful smells for 14 hours for 15 minutes of riding. I tell you what, I'd do it twice, three times on Sunday. </p>
<p>Maybe sports is the thing that brings some dads into their daughters lives, maybe it's science club? I can't see knocking something that is so positive for so many...</p>
<p>Opie,</p>
<p>Why do you persist in such semantic hair splitting posts. "force" versus "encouraging"? I could care less, but fail to see what value such a post adds to this discussion.</p>
<p>FWIW, and completely unsurprising to me, you miss the whole point of my post. Are athletics positive for kids? Maybe, maybe not. But the cited research does not address the question. But it is difficult to do so in a retrospective fashion. </p>
<p>"Common sense" tells us athletics are good for kids because kids that are athletes are better than kids that are not, or something to that effect. And we see statements like "reduction of teen pregnancies that participation in sports helps with. " But we don't know if girls participate in sports for the smae reason that they don't get pregnant, or if sports itself causes the reduction.</p>
<p>Finally, opie,
[quote]
I can't see knocking something that is so positive for so many...
[/quote]
don't know where this came from. How can you equate criticizing a story and its conclusions with "knocking" something? Beats me.</p>
<p>"Because the same undiscussed, unrecognized factor, such as higher achievement motivation, could account for both effects."</p>
<p>I was going to point out that:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>High school sports teams generally require participants to maintain a good GPA. So girls who are struggling academically are excluded from the population of athletes.</p></li>
<li><p>Girls who have to work to help support the family, or who have to help raise younger siblings, or who have babies themselves -- in other words, a lot of girls in poverty -- usually don't have time for sports teams. So the poorest girls, who are a lot less likely to make it to college, are largely excluded from the population of athletes as well.</p></li>
<li><p>Better-funded high schools have a lot more sports teams than poor ones do. My private high school had room for everyone who wanted to participate. There aren't many rural or inner-city schools that offer the long list of sports (tennis, lacrosse, field hockey, gymnastics, swimming, water polo, etc.) that suburban and private high schools commonly offer in addition to the near-universal basketball and softball.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>If you look at a population that's biased towards solid students, biased towards the middle class, and biased towards those who attended well-funded high schools, you'd expect to find higher rates of college completion. This doesn't say much about the power of sports.</p>
<p>Hanna's points are certainly valid...BUT....sports are one of the few paths to academic engagement for non-middle class kids. The sport may vary from culture to culture, but unlike music or ballet the cost of entry is doable for low income families, and oddly enough there are more scholarships out there for basketball camp or Pop Warner dues than there are for music lessons.
Travel sports such as Select soccer may be biased toward middle class families, but it is not necessary to play in a select league to participate in school sports, whereas it is necessary to afford lessons and the cost of an instrument to learn to play an instrument. </p>
<p>I also believe there are benefits to being physically active that help kids focus when they need to sit quietly and read or listen to a lecture or work on math problems. I've often wondered if the increase in ADD is at all related to the fact that kids don't get nearly as much physical exercise as they did even a generation ago. When we were kids, we walked everywhere, we rode big heavy clumsy bikes, we played baseball, tag, and Red Rover in the big open empty lot behind our subdivision. School was a little less than a mile away so when we arrived at school we'd had a 20 minute walk and it was a lot easier to settle down and listen to the teacher. Similarly the walk home and playing outside made it possible to sit quietly and do homework.</p>
<p>I found the story interesting. I do understand NMD's hesitation of accepting the conclusions. Indeed, this study can be branded with the "causation and correlation are not the same" label that is fast becoming ubiquitous in this forum. However, while we all know a few individual cases that could provide a real rebuttal to the study's findings, the correlation/causation line could be balanced with my favorite line that the plural of anecdote is not data. </p>
<p>From a distance, it appears that this study relied on a reasonable sample and did include reasonable controlling factors:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Troutman and Dufur analyzed a sample of 5,000 female students from the high school class of 1992 who were randomly selected to participate in the National Education Longitudinal Study. Those students, both athletes and non-athletes, completed surveys in 8th grade, 10th grade and 12th grade. Six years after finishing high school, the participants completed a final survey that included questions about post-high school education.</p>
<p>The statistical analysis accounted for other potential factors that could also influence **educational attainment, including parents’ education, family income, type of school, student expectations, family size, race, high school test scores, college grades **and whether the student continued their athletic career at college. Controlling for those effects, the researchers still found that women with high school sports experience had better success earning a 4-year college degree.</p>
<p>As a former soccer and softball player at her high school, Troutman hopes this research corrects the misconception that sports teams only distract students from class work.</p>
<p>“The assumption is that athletics are detrimental to academics,” Troutman said. “To a certain level, academics and sports are complementary.”</p>
<p>While an undergraduate at BYU, Troutman came across research that indicated sports benefit girls more than boys in the short-run in terms of mental health, self-confidence and academic achievement. The lack of information about long-term benefits for girls gave Troutman a research idea that she submitted in her capstone class for sociology majors. With encouragement and mentoring from Dufur, Troutman turned that idea into a master’s thesis and the Youth & Society paper, which they titled “From High School Jocks to College Grads.”
[/quote]
</p>
<p>My own perception is that the study's major accomplishment (or objective) is to erode “The assumption is that athletics are detrimental to academics,” and reinforce that “to a certain level, academics and sports are complementary.”</p>
<p>I don't see this study as demonstrating that the combination in college of athlete-students is better than other subgroups but that this subgroups does better than the average. However, I do believe that the correlation between academic and athletic success is something that coaches (such as Opie) with lengthy experience in youth soccer, and especially, women soccer HAVE witnessed and don't mind telling the prospective parents who worry about the extensive requirements in time. I know I heard it many times in the context of select/traveling teams. </p>
<p>Looking at the teams for which my sister played, I'd have to admit that the players did seem to provide ample proof of the coaches "hunches." While the fact that players HAD to maintain high GPA to remain on the teams is relevant, it's hard to reject the positive side brought by athletics or the ... seemingly positive correlation between academic and specific athletic performance. :)</p>
<p>O.K., I'll weigh in here.</p>
<p>What bothers me about these sports stories is/are possibly some of the same things that bother newmassdad. Please, don't interpret my post here as knocking sports. I do strongly agree with Mombot in the one respect of economics as well as broad availability. Athletics does require auditions for the more competitive teams & situations (or private teams, etc.), but it would be difficult to find a location in this country where a student could not find at least an intramural opportunity, free or nominal, publicly (city) based, or connected with the high school of enrollment. For the aspect of maximum participation (and variety!) -- and finally, due to greater recognition of girls & greater interest in sports by girls -- far more gender parity than there once was, sports is a wonderful opportunity-activity that is far less class-based than many other activities.</p>
<p>However, when it comes to these questionable "studies"....What came first, the chicken or the egg? It is difficult to know whether it was the sport that gave the student determinism, resilience, ability to work in teams as well as lead, social confidence, ability to prioritize -- and any other traits that are seen as healthfully promoting graduation -- or whether students with those traits consciously or unconsciously sought out an opportunity which sustained these already inherent or budding traits, and that for them, sports was the activity that best encouraged those.</p>
<p>For example, I'm thinking of all kinds of anecdotal situations where I know well (from babyhood) certain students who have chosen sports. And of course I'm limiting this to females, not just because of the study cited, but because of the greater social "pressure," expectations -- however it's put -- that boys often have due to gender tradition. I'm particularly thinking of one student I know who was mega-team-oriented way before she became involved in sports. However, I don't know what she would have done without sports; I think she would have been very frustrated. She was dying to express herself physically; she's a born leader (pre-sports); she's a super-extrovert. I know many other students with a similar pattern. The drive came from the student. Drive was there before the sport. Thank goodness for the sport: it supported the drive, nurtured the drive, was a release for the drive. But I do not necessarily credit the sport for the drive...or the leadership...or the resilience...etc.</p>
<p>rather than argue the point of it is light or dark with some of you here. I'll pass. The arguements are based on yours and my preceived values coming in. Your experiences shape your opinion. Mine too. </p>
<p>I've worked with a variety of kids from different ecomonic, social and cultural backgrounds. I'm really not seeing what several of you are saying as the norm in these situations, but the exception. The true "norm" are kids who enjoy themselves in their sport, building self confidence and fitness. </p>
<p>That is why I said "everybody's got a story" about someone who makes the point bad. However, I think the closest to the mark is ephif's chicken and the egg, in which comes first? Sports are another positive outlet for alot of kids. It's just going to depend on the adults involved and how they shape the experience. </p>
<p>As I read some posts here, I keep thinking of situations I've experienced that fly in the face of the arguements against. But whatever floats your boat.</p>
<p>See Dan Kindlons book Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She Is Changing the World. They are often academically superior, athletically gifted and driven, socially engaged. I have one of these.</p>
<p>He supports the idea the top young women today are generally good at everything. Ive done nothing but observe my daughters soccer teammates. But our Premier Club Soccer teams were taught school was important. And taught the lessons you learn playing top level soccer will help you in college as early as sixth grade. I am now seeing how these lessons are applied as college students. Ive watched several girls really learn how to organize their lives and see their own potential. They have a better chance to graduate because of sports because it was ingrained in them you can do this. An example, the head coach heard a younger girl say Im just not good at math, girls cant do it. He took her out of practice and took her to my daughters practice. He pointed to forward and said shes really good at math, then he pointed to two midfielders and said the same thing. He finally pointed to the outside defenders and said they are math whizzes, they aced the SATs in math.</p>
<p>Opie, in my school, in my class, my point stands true (for both girl's and boy's sports). True, I wasn't there, but I am confident in my assertion that more than just a few athletes at my HS were hard drinkers, among other things...I didn't need to be there, I heard about it right from these peoples' mouths. Maybe that's more my town than it is sports, but I stand behind my assertion that, in my experience, this was the case.</p>
<p>I think sports are fine and dandy, but I guess I just find this study to be a non-story...don't we all know that it is better to be involved than not involved? Seems like common sense to me. </p>
<p>Also, I guess I never thought of HS sports and athletes as poor students. To me, that stereotype (fairly, IMO) comes from big name, Division I college sports (basketball and football), where the athletes are often basically professionals and the college is just a platform. In that case, it seems obvious that academics are not priority number one. But I personally never carry that association over to HS and/or girl's sports.</p>
<p><a href="http://yas.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/38/4/443%5B/url%5D">http://yas.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/38/4/443</a></p>
<p>Ad, are you only using partying as proof? A hard drinker from chicago? naw it isn't possible? ;)</p>
<p>Please don't confuse my posts to imply that the choice to drink or not drink is the only basis to keep kids in sports... hon, I'm an Irishman.</p>
<p>I was viewing the situation in the creation of an overall person, not a tee totaller. A person can consume spirits and even certain recreational drugs and still be a good student. It's when those activities become the main driver or motivation does a problem occur. </p>
<p>I didn't get the vibe or hopefully give off the vibe that sports make the girl must be virginal and pure. I was more along the lines of self confidence, organized, motivated, able to deal with both success and failure better.. None of these attributes are eliminated by having a beer or a roll in the hay. </p>
<p>However, those attributes make for a stronger young woman who can decide for herself on her terms whether a beer or a roll in the hay is what SHE wants or doesn't want.</p>
<p>Fine, whatever, I'm just a big old boring prude. I was simply making the point that many of the athletes in my HS engaged in excessive behavior, but I guess excessive is in the eye of the beholder and apparently finding heavy (key word!) drinking excessive is now called being a teetotaller. </p>
<p>I didn't mean to make it a big issue....I already stated the rest of my opinions on the matter in my other posts.</p>
<p>"It's when those activities become the main driver or motivation does a problem occur. "</p>
<p>"I guess excessive is in the eye of the beholder "</p>
<p>Probably so, I mean does not attending church every day mean someone is not religous? Would it be fair to use my above sentence as a qualifier? Yes, heavy drinking would be a sign of a problem. I think mini has a fair definition of heavy drinking and it has been covered here in other posts. </p>
<p>When the activity becomes the driver? People abuse food consumption too, makeup, hairspray, clothes could also be included in excessive behavior for some. </p>
<p>And no one's calling you a boring prude or big for that matter. However, realizing that different cultures have different views of spirits and their consumption and age of participation, would you reject somebody's friendship because they have a glass of wine with dinner?</p>