Psychosocial and Socio-Environmental Correlatesof Sport Identity and Sport Participationin Secondary School-Age Children

Although sport offers many psychological and physical health benefits, only a minority of youngsters become seriously involved. One construct that has po-tential to describe psychological commitment and longer term participation in sport is sport identity. The purpose of this study was to a) identify key psychoso-cial and socio-environmental variables related to sport identity, and b) provide a preliminary test of a sport identity model to predict children's sport participa-tion. Participants were 55 boys and 45 girls aged 12 to 13 from a secondary school in England. A series of established questionnaires including the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire, Self-Regulation Questionnaire, Sport Competence Subscale from the Physical Self-Perception Profile and Per-ceived Importance Profile, and Athletic Identity Measurement Scale were used to assess psychosocial variables. In addition, socio-environmental question-naires were developed for the study to assess the influence of parents, peers, and schools. Regression analysis indicated that sport identity was the strongest predictor of sport participation. A preliminary model featuring sport identity as a mediator between psychosocial, environmental variables and sport participa-tion was tested. Results indicated that the data provided a good fit. This study has provided initial evidence that sport identity is an important construct for the study of children's sport participation.