title: Who Wants to Play? Sport Motivation Trajectories, Sport Participation, and the Development of Depressive Symptoms.
abstract: Although sport involvement has the potential to enhance psychological wellbeing, studies have suggested that motivation to participate in sports activities declines across childhood and adolescence. This study incorporated expectancy-value theory to model children's sport ability self-concept and subjective task values trajectories from first to twelfth grade. Additionally, it examined if sport motivation trajectories predicted individual and team-based sport participation and whether sport participation in turn reduced the development of depressive symptoms. Data were drawn from the Childhood and Beyond Study, a cross-sequential longitudinal study comprised of three cohorts (N = 1065; 49% male; 92% European American; Magesfor youngest, middle, and oldest cohorts at the first wave were 6.42, 7.39, and 9.36 years, respectively). Results revealed four trajectories of students' co-development of sport self-concept and task values: congruent stable high, incongruent stable high, middle school decreasing, and decreasing. Trajectory membership predicted individual and team-based sports participation, but only team-based sport participation predicted faster declines in depressive symptoms. The use of a person-centered approach enabled us to identify heterogeneity in trajectories of sport motivation that can aid in the development of nuanced strategies to increase students' motivation to participate in sports.
authors.affiliation: University of Pittsburgh, 230 South Bouquet Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA. mtwang@pitt.edu.
authors.forename: Ming-Te
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Indiana University, 107 S Indiana Ave, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA.
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chow
authors.affiliation: University of Pittsburgh, 230 South Bouquet Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA.
authors.forename: Jamie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Amemiya
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D012574:Schools; D012649:Self Concept; D058992:Social Participation / Q000523:psychology*; D013177:Sports / Q000523:psychology*; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Ability self-concept; Depressive symptoms; Expectancy-value theory; Person-centered approach; Sport motivation; Subjective task values