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The educational impacts of young people's participation in organised sport: a systematic review

Karen Schucan Bird (Research Officer, based at SSRU, Institute of Education, London, UK)
Janice Tripney (Research Officer based at SSRU, Institute of Education, London, UK)
Mark Newman (Assistant Director, based at SSRU, Institute of Education, London, UK)

Journal of Children's Services

ISSN: 1746-6660

Article publication date: 29 November 2013

1501

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of young people's participation in organised sport on their educational outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach

Systematic review of the literature. A comprehensive search was used to identify all research evidence about engagement, impact and value in culture and sport. A combination of manual and automated screening was used to select studies for inclusion in this review based on pre-specified criteria. Included studies had to use a “high”-quality experimental research design, focus on children and young people and have quantitative educational outcome measures. Results from the individual studies were transformed into a standardised effect size and meta-analysis was used to combine the results from individual studies where appropriate.

Findings

Young people's participation in sport may lead to improved educational outcomes. Young people's participation in organised sports activities, when compared to non-participation, improves their numeracy skills. Young people's participation in organised sport linked with extra-curricular activities, when compared to non-participation, improves a range of learning outcomes for underachieving pupils. These findings are based on six “high”-quality studies conducted in the UK and North America. Study populations included young people within the range of four to 16 years old.

Originality/value

This paper builds on the existing evidence base in two main ways. First, it focuses specifically on the impacts associated with organised sport whereas previous reviews have had a broader focus. Second, it uses meta-analytic methods to synthesise study findings. This paper provides pooled effect sizes for overall educational impacts and translates these into potential changes in test/grade scores.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This systematic review was part of larger programme of research examining the drivers, impact and value of engagement with culture and sport. This constituted one part of the CASE programme, which was funded by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport in collaboration with Arts Council England, English Heritage and Sport England. The funders’ role in the research process involved defining the scope of the systematic review, identifying search sources and agreeing methods and tools for screening and coding studies.

Citation

Schucan Bird, K., Tripney, J. and Newman, M. (2013), "The educational impacts of young people's participation in organised sport: a systematic review", Journal of Children's Services, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 264-275. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-04-2013-0014

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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