More children suffer head injuries playing recreational sport than team sport
August 20, 2019
Science Daily/Murdoch Childrens Research Institute
An Australian/ New Zealand study examining childhood head injuries has found that children who do recreational sports like horse riding, skate boarding and bike riding are more likely to suffer serious head injuries than children who play contact sport like AFL or rugby.
Research, conducted by the PREDICT research network, Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI), published on Wiley and soon to be published in the Australian Medical Journal, examined the data of 8,857 children presenting with head injuries to ten emergency departments in Australian and New Zealand hospitals.
A third of the children, who were aged between five and 18 years, injured themselves playing sport. Of these children four out of five were boys.
Lead research author, MCRI's Professor Franz Babl, says the team looked at 'íntracranial' injuries in children because while there is a lot of interest about sport and concussion, less is understood about the severity of head injuries children suffer while playing sport.
"The study found that in children who presented to the emergency departments after head injury and participated in recreational sports like horse riding, skate boarding and bike riding were more likely to sustain serious head injuries than children who played contact sport like AFL, rugby, soccer or basketball," he says.
"We found that 45 of the 3,177 sports-related head injuries were serious and classified as clinically important Traumatic Brain Injury (ciTBI), meaning the patient required either neuro-surgery, at least two nights in hospital and/or being placed on a breathing machine. One child died as a result of head injuries."
Prof Babl says that the sports which resulted in the most frequent reason for presentation to emergency departments included bike riding (16 per cent), rugby (13 per cent), AFL (10 per cent), other football (9 per cent), and soccer (8 per cent).
The most frequent causes of serious injury included bike riding (44 per cent), skateboarding (18 per cent), horse riding (16 per cent), with AFL and rugby resulting in one serious head injury each and soccer resulting none.
A total of 524 patients with sports-related head injuries (16 per cent) needed CT imaging, and 14 children required surgery.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190820101527.htm
Negative impacts of food insecurity on children's health
September 9, 2019
Science Daily/American University
Food insecurity -- uncertainty about or a lack of consistent access to food that meets the needs of household members -- is a persistent social problem in the United States that affected roughly 14.3 million households in 2018 and nearly 14% of households with children, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A new paper by researchers at the Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW) and American University's School of Public Affairs (AU SPA) confirms the negative impact of food insecurity on child health, suggesting the urgent need for policies to combat this problem.
"Previous studies have pointed to a negative impact of food insecurity on child health, but our paper uses rich, nationally representative data to rule out other explanations for this relationship," says study lead author Margaret M.C. Thomas, MSW, doctoral candidate at BUSSW. "By comparing the outcomes of children in food-secure homes to those in food-insecure homes who were alike with respect to a large number of other factors, we have been able to more definitively characterize the serious negative health impacts of food insecurity."
Published in the journal Pediatrics, the research by Thomas and colleagues Associate Professor Daniel P. Miller, PhD (Boston University), and Associate Professor Taryn W. Morrissey, PhD (American University), points to a unique and negative effect of household food insecurity on children's health that is not due to the composition of their homes, the safety of their neighborhoods, or their household's income or receipt of public assistance. Instead, it shows the pervasive negative impacts of household food insecurity on children's health. "Household food insecurity was related to significantly worse general health, some acute and chronic health problems, worse health care access, and heightened emergency department use for children," says Morrissey.
The team of researchers used propensity scoring (PS) methods to investigate the effects of food insecurity on children's health by leveraging the inclusion of a measure of household food insecurity in the nationally representative National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). The NHIS data also include a rich set of background information about families including demographic characteristics, economic information, public program participation, and adult physical and mental health outcomes.
Thomas and her colleagues believe that their analytic approach is an important improvement over previous studies that use traditional regression methods. Using PS methods allowed them to better assess the causal impact of food insecurity on key domains of child health and health care use.
"Propensity scoring, a quasi-experimental family of methods, seeks to mimic the context of an experimental design by comparing outcomes among children who differ with respect to the household's food insecurity but who are alike in all other observable ways," Thomas says. "Because of the highly detailed information in the NHIS data, we were able to create a sample that is balanced with respect to known predictors of food insecurity."
Data on the independent impact of food insecurity on child health helps guide efforts to prevent food insecurity and ameliorate its consequences. The researchers suggest immediate policy responses, such as an increase in federal SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits for families.
"There are clear and consistent harmful impacts of food insecurity on children's general health, chronic health, acute health, and access to health care," Thomas says. "Without intervention, household food insecurity will continue to detrimentally impact children's health."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190909131110.htm
No link found between youth contact sports and cognitive, mental health problems
October 21, 2019
Science Daily/University of Colorado at Boulder
Adolescents who play contact sports, including football, are no more likely to experience cognitive impairment, depression or suicidal thoughts in early adulthood than their peers, suggests a new University of Colorado Boulder study of nearly 11,000 youth followed for 14 years.
The study, published this month in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, also found that those who play sports are less likely to suffer from mental health issues by their late 20s to early 30s.
"There is a common perception that there's a direct causal link between youth contact sports, head injuries and downstream adverse effects like impaired cognitive ability and mental health," said lead author Adam Bohr, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Integrative Physiology. "We did not find that."
The study comes on the heels of several highly-publicized papers linking sport-related concussion among former professional football players to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), cognitive decline and mental health issues later in life. Such reports have led many to question the safety of youth tackle football, and participation is declining nationally.
But few studies have looked specifically at adolescent participation in contact sports.
"When people talk about NFL players, they are talking about an elite subset of the population," said senior author Matthew McQueen, an associate professor of integrative physiology. "We wanted to look specifically at kids and determine if there are true harms that are showing up early in adulthood."
The study analyzed data from 10,951 participants in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), a representative sample of youth in seventh through 12th grades who have been interviewed and tested repeatedly since 1994.
Participants were categorized into groups: those who, in 1994, said they intended to participate in contact sports; those who intended to play non-contact sports; and those who did not intend to play sports. Among males, 26% said they intended to play football.
After controlling for socioeconomic status, education, race and other factors, the researchers analyzed scores through 2008 on word and number recall and questionnaires asking whether participants had been diagnosed with depression or attempted or thought about suicide.
"We were unable to find any meaningful difference between individuals who participated in contact sports and those who participated in non-contact sports. Across the board, across all measures, they looked more or less the same later in life," said Bohr.
Football players -- for reasons that are not clear -- actually had a lower incidence of depression in early adulthood than other groups.
Those who reported they did not intend to participate in sports at age 8 to 14 were 22% more likely to suffer depression in their late 20s and 30s.
"Right now, football is in many ways being compared to cigarette smoking -- no benefit and all harm," said McQueen, who is also director for the Pac-12 Concussion Coordinating Unit. "It is absolutely true that there is a subset of NFL players who have experienced horrible neurological decline, and we need to continue to research to improve our understanding of that important issue."
But, he said, "the idea that playing football in high school will lead to similar outcomes later in life as those who played in the NFL is not consistent with the evidence. In fact, we and others have found there is some benefit to playing youth sports."
A recent University of Pennsylvania study of 3,000 men who had graduated high school in Wisconsin in 1957 found that those who played football were no more likely to suffer depression or cognitive impairment later. But some pointed out that the sport had changed radically since the 1950s.
The new study is among the largest to date and looks at those who played football in the 1990s.
The authors note that, due to the design of the dataset, they were only able to measure "intended" participation. (Due to the timing of the questionnaires, however, it is likely that those who reported participation in football actually did participate.)
They also could not tell how long an adolescent played, what position or whether a concussion or sub-concussive head injury was ever sustained. Further studies should be done exploring those factors, they said.
"Few current public health issues are as contentious and controversial as the safety and consequences of participation in football," they concluded. "Research on the risks of participation weighed with the risks of not participating in sports will enable parents and young athletes to make educated, informed decisions based on solid evidence."
A new CU Boulder study, looking at the long-term mental and physical health of CU student-athlete alumni, is already underway.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191021082749.htm
Prenatal and early life exposure to multiple air pollutants increases odds of toddler allergies
Early exposure to candles, cats and environmental tobacco smoke showed greatest impact
December 5, 2019
Science Daily/American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology
A new article in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) shows a significant association between multiple prenatal and early life exposures to indoor pollutants and the degree of allergic sensitivity in 2-year-olds.
"Because most children are exposed to more than one pollutant or allergen, we examined the relationship between multiple exposures and allergic sensitizations at 2 years of age," says Mallory Gallant, MSc, lead author of the study. "We examined exposure to dogs, cats, air fresheners, candles, mold, environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and carpet, all of which have been associated with childhood allergies. Of the exposures we measured, prenatal exposure to candles, 6-month exposure to cats and 2-year exposure to ETS significantly increased the chance of a positive skin prick test (SPT) at 2 years of age."
108 mother-child pairs were followed from birth to 2 years of age. Exposure to air fresheners, candles, mold, cats, dogs, carpet and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) during the prenatal, 6-month, 1-year, and 2-year timepoints were obtained. A SPT was performed on both the mother and the 2-year-old child to measure allergic sensitivity. Allergic sensitization means that a person has had (or may have had given the possibilities for false positives) an allergic type immune response to a substance. But it does not necessarily mean that the substance causes them problems.
"The increase in the average amount of time indoors means there is an increased risk of harmful health outcomes related to exposure to indoor air pollutants," says allergist Anne K. Ellis, MD, study author, and member of the ACAAI Environmental Allergy Committee. "Additionally, children breathe more frequently per minute than adults, and mostly breathe through their mouths. These differences could allow for air pollutants to penetrate more deeply into the lungs and at higher concentrations, making children more vulnerable to air pollutants."
Another goal of the study was to evaluate the effect of multiple exposures on allergic outcomes at 2 years of age. The study found that children with a positive SPT at 2 years of age had significantly more exposures prenatally, at the 1-year and 2-year time points compared to children with a negative SPT. As the number of indoor air polluting exposures increased, the percentage of children with a positive SPT increased. Dr. Ellis says, "When considered together, the findings suggest that the effect of multiple exposures may contribute more to allergy development than one single exposure."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191205130554.htm
Brain differences detected in children with depressed parents
December 5, 2019
Science Daily/Columbia University Irving Medical Center
The largest brain imaging study of children ever conducted in the United States has revealed structural differences in the brains of those whose parents have depression.
Depression is a common and debilitating mental health condition that typically arises during adolescence. While the causes of depression are complex, having a parent with depression is one of the biggest known risk factors. Studies have consistently shown that adolescent children of parents with depression are two to three times more likely to develop depression than those with no parental history of depression. However, the brain mechanisms that underlie this familial risk are unclear.
A new study, led by David Pagliaccio, PhD, assistant professor of clinical neurobiology in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, found structural differences in the brains of children at high risk for depression due to parental depressive history.
The study was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
The researchers analyzed brain images from over 7,000 children participating in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive development (ABCD) study, led by the NIH. About one-third of the children were in the high-risk group because they had a parent with depression.
In the high-risk children, the right putamen -- a brain structure linked to reward, motivation, and the experience of pleasure -- was smaller than in children with no parental history of depression.
Randy P. Auerbach, PhD, associate professor of medical psychology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and senior author of the study, notes, "These findings highlight a potential risk factor that may lead to the development of depressive disorders during a peak period of onset. However, in our prior research, smaller putamen volumes also has been linked to anhedonia -- a reduced ability to experience pleasure -- which is implicated in depression, substance use, psychosis, and suicidal behaviors. Thus, it may be that smaller putamen volume is a transdiagnostic risk factor that may confer vulnerability to broad-based mental disorders."
Dr. Pagliaccio adds that, "Understanding differences in the brains of children with familial risk factors for depression may help to improve early identification of those at greatest risk for developing depression themselves, and lead to improved diagnosis and treatment. As children will be followed for a 10-year period during one of the greatest periods of risk, we have a unique opportunity to determine whether reduced putamen volumes are associated with depression specifically or mental disorders more generally."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191205130534.htm
Skipping breakfast linked to lower GCSE grades
November 20, 2019
Science Daily/University of Leeds
Students who rarely ate breakfast on school days achieved lower GCSE grades than those who ate breakfast frequently, according to a new study in Yorkshire.
Researchers, from the University of Leeds, have for the first time demonstrated a link between eating breakfast and GCSE performance for secondary school students in the UK.
Adding together all of a student's exam results, they found that students who said they rarely ate breakfast achieved nearly two grades lower than those who rarely missed their morning meal.
The research is published today in the journal Frontiers in Public Health.
Lead researcher Dr Katie Adolphus, from the University of Leeds' School of Psychology, said: "Our study suggests that secondary school students are at a disadvantage if they are not getting a morning meal to fuel their brains for the start of the school day.
"The UK has a growing problem of food poverty, with an estimated half a million children arriving at school each day too hungry to learn. Previously we have shown that eating breakfast has a positive impact on children's cognition.
"This research suggests that poor nutrition is associated with worse results at school."
The Government in England run a national, means-tested free school lunch programme accessible to all students, but there is no equivalent for breakfast. Charities Magic Breakfast and Family Action deliver a breakfast programme funded by the Department for Education, which provides free breakfasts for more than 1,800 schools located in the most socio-economically deprived parts of England.
Separately, Magic Breakfast supports breakfast provision in a further 480 UK schools. However, this leaves many of the 24,000 state-funded schools in England without free breakfast provision for children not getting breakfast at home.
Some schools compensate by offering breakfast clubs they have to fund themselves, or funded by companies such as Kellogg's.
The Leeds researchers say their findings support the calls to expand the current limited free school breakfast programme to include every state school in England. A policy proposal from Magic Breakfast to introduce school breakfast legislation is currently being considered by politicians, which has been supported by Leeds academics.
Alex Cunningham, CEO of Magic Breakfast, said: "This study is a valuable insight, reinforcing the importance of breakfast in boosting pupils' academic attainment and removing barriers to learning. Education is crucial to a child's future life success and escaping poverty, therefore ensuring every child has access to a healthy start to the day must be a priority.
"We are grateful to the University of Leeds for highlighting this positive impact and welcome their findings, highlighting once again the importance of our work with schools." GCSE performance
The researchers surveyed 294 students from schools and colleges in West Yorkshire in 2011, and found that 29% rarely or never ate breakfast on school days, whilst 18% ate breakfast occasionally, and 53% frequently. Their figures are similar to the latest national data for England in 2019, which found that more than 16% of secondary school children miss breakfast.
GCSE grades were converted to point scores using the Department for Education's 2012 system, where A* = 58, A = 52, B = 46, and so on. Adding up students' scores across all subjects gave students an aggregated score.
Those who rarely ate breakfast scored on average 10.25 points lower than those who frequently ate breakfast, a difference of nearly two grades, after accounting for other important factors including socio-economic status, ethnicity, age, sex and BMI.
Looking at performance for each individual GCSE, they found that students who rarely ate breakfast scored on average 1.20 points lower than those who frequently ate breakfast, after accounting for other factors. Each grade equates to six points, so the difference accounted for a drop of a fifth of a grade for every GCSE an individual achieved.
Nicola Dolton, Programme Manager for the National School Breakfast Programme, from Family Action, said: "The National School Breakfast Programme is delighted to see the publication of this thorough and compelling research, highlighting the impact that breakfast consumption has on a child's GCSE attainment.
"This report provides impressive evidence that eating a healthy breakfast improves a child's educational attainment, which supports our own findings of improvements in a child's concentration in class, readiness to learn, behaviour and punctuality."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191120131349.htm
Boredom is on the rise for adolescents, especially girls
November 19, 2019
Science Daily/Washington State University
New research has found that boredom is rising year after year for teens in 8th, 10th, and 12th grades, with greater increases for girls than boys.
"I'm so bored!" It's a typical complaint by teens in every era, but one that's growing more common for U.S. adolescents, especially girls.
New research at Washington State University has found that boredom is rising year after year for teens in 8th, 10th, and 12th grades, with greater increases for girls than boys.
"We were surprised to see that boredom is increasing at a more rapid pace for girls than boys across all grades," said Elizabeth Weybright, WSU researcher of adolescent development, who shared the findings in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Collaborating with scientists John Schulenberg at the University of Michigan and Linda Caldwell at Pennsylvania State University, Weybright's project tracked a decade of adolescent responses to a question about boredom in the nationwide Monitoring the Future in-school survey.
Adolescents were asked to rate their response to the question "I am often bored," on a five-point scale. Weybright and her colleagues analyzed the results over time and across grades, between 2008, when the question was first asked, and 2017.
Detailed in "More bored today than yesterday? National trends in adolescent boredom from 2008-2017," the team's research revealed that boredom rose within and across grades for much of the last decade.
"Everybody experiences boredom from time to time, but many people don't realize it may be associated with depressive symptoms and risky behaviors, such as substance misuse," Weybright said. "I wanted to find out when adolescents are most likely to experience boredom."
Boredom rising since 2010
When comparing across grades, boredom appears to peak in 10th grade for boys and in 8th grade for girls.
However, looking across time with grade levels combined, boys' boredom levels rose 1.6 percent every year on average, while girls' boredom levels rose by 1.7 percent on average. In the 10th grade, girls' boredom level rose by about 2 percent every year. In every grade, girls' boredom levels showed steeper rises than boys.
"Historically, we saw a decline from 2008 to 2010 across all grades, but it wasn't significant," said Weybright. "Then, we see a significant increase from 2010 to 2017. Around 2010, there's a divergence for boys and girls. We see that boredom increases for boys and girls, but it increases a bit steeper and earlier for girls."
While Weybright's study doesn't explore the causes of rising boredom, she notes that boredom may be associated with sensation-seeking and depression, which are rising among U.S. teens. At the same time, digital media use has also been increasing, doubling for 12th graders from 2006 to 2012.
Within this same timeframe, other researchers have seen decreases in adolescents going out with friends and spending more time alone.
"Perhaps boredom is simply one more indicator of adolescent dissatisfaction with how their time is spent," Weybright stated in the paper.
"Adolescence is a time of change and growth," she said. "Teens want more independence, but may not have as much autonomy as they'd like in their school and home life. That creates situations where they're prone to boredom, and may have a hard time coping with being bored."
Considered alongside trends in mental health, depression, and social interaction, the team's boredom research provides a clearer picture about the changing world of adolescence.
"It also shows that we're going to need some kind of intervention," said Weybright, who called for more robust study of adolescent boredom.
"One of the challenges with this data set is that it includes different people every year," Weybright said. "This means I can't follow one person across time to find a causal link."
Future research should expand earlier into middle school, she suggested, and also take a closer, day-to-day look at how young people are experiencing boredom, and how it aligns with sleep, social interaction, and other factors in their lives.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191119123750.htm
Helicopter parents and 'hothouse children' -- exploring the high stakes of family dynamics
November 18, 2019
Science Daily/West Virginia University
The phenomenon of helicopter parenting most often occurs in middle- to upper-class families where stakes are high for parents to be able to show off their children's success. Her research, which focuses on young adults 18- to 24- years-old, indicates that high helicopter parenting leads to 'low mastery, self-regulation and social competence.'
True helicopter parents talk a good game in making their actions all about their children, but according to one West Virginia University researcher, what they're doing is reaping -- and heaping -- the rewards for themselves.
Kristin Moilanen, associate professor of child development and family studies, said the phenomenon of helicopter parenting most often occurs in middle- to upper-class families where stakes are high for parents to be able to show off their children's success. Her research, which focuses on young adults 18- to 24- years-old, indicates that high helicopter parenting leads to "low mastery, self-regulation and social competence."
"Unfortunately, I think the term for those children is 'hothouse children,'" Moilanen said. "I think they've been raised to be these sort of delicate flowers under these very well-controlled conditions and -- just like a tropical plant -- they're vulnerable whenever those conditions are exceeded, which is a scary thought."
The college admissions scandal, which led to the arrest and incarceration of two Hollywood actresses who had bribed high-profile universities to admit their children by falsifying admissions test scores or outright lying about athletic abilities, might be the most currently-famous example of helicopter parenting gone wrong.
"Their stakes were different than, maybe for average people, but maybe [the fear was] they wouldn't have access to the spotlight or that the college wouldn't be prestigious enough, maybe that it wouldn't be in keeping with their lifestyle they were accustomed to," Moilanen said.
The motivation for "the right" college or university rounds out the helicopter parents' career guidance, for example, forcing a choice in medicine when the child may want to be an artist, she continued. Helicopter parenting, Moilanen said, isn't done for what the child wants; it can be done for what the parent wants for the child.
The dichotomy does more harm that just resentment toward an interfering parent. Moilanen said children take parents' repeated over-involvement in their decisions to heart, undermining their sense of self-concept and their ability to self-regulate.
Moilanen said when those students come to college, where their parents have a financial stake, they have struggles they don't necessarily know how to manage. Some of them handle the pressure with dangerous behaviors, including episodic drinking that they hide from their parents.
"It can get messy for those kids really fast," she said. "In a sense, they get caught between their parents' desires, even if [the child] knows what's best for themselves."
Moilanen said children might figure out problems on their own, but the parent swoops in before they have the opportunity to learn for themselves. Collateral side effects of the child's continued lack of autonomy could be heightened anxiety and internalizing problems, as well as leading to the belief that they are incapable of living independently and their outcomes are primarily shaped by external forces instead of their own decisions, the research said.
Moilanen noted that some children may need more oversight than others, and those situations vary from family-to-family and even from child-to-child within a family. Also, she said, "most kids turn out just fine and learn to 'adult' on their own."
There's no research yet that shows what kind of parents these "hothouse children" are or will be, Moilanen said.
"We do know that people tend to repeat the parenting that they receive, so I would say the chances are good that those children who were raised by helicopter parents would probably act in kind," she said.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191118140319.htm
Schools less important than parents in determining higher education aspirations
November 18, 2019
Science Daily/Taylor & Francis Group
A new study shows that the elementary school a child attends has almost no influence on their desire to progress to higher education -- as factors including parental aspirations, academic support from their mother and having a desk to work on are much more important.
Published in the journal Educational Studies, the findings of the research looking at 1,000 pupils showed that school and class size, the grade point average of the school and property prices, had little influence on the desire to continue to higher education.
The research was carried out by Josip Šabić and Boris Jokić at the Centre for Educational Research and Development of the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Croatia, and was supported by the Croatian Science Foundation. The authors wanted to discover the main factors affecting pupils' intention to continue to higher education as they reach the end of elementary school.
In Croatia, children attend elementary schools up to age 14-15, at which point they move on to a secondary school. Here, they can either study for a four-year diploma, after which they have the option of applying for university, or a three-year diploma, which prepares pupils for work but does not permit them to apply for university.
To find out children's aspirations, they asked just over 1,000 pupils at 23 elementary schools in Zagreb to complete three separate questionnaires during their last two years at elementary school. These questionnaires asked them whether they would like to continue to higher education, as well as about their parents and home life. There were questions about their parents' aspirations for them, the level of academic support they received from each of their parents, whether they had their own room, computer and desk, and whether they enjoyed school.
The researchers also obtained information on the pupils' academic grades, as well as on the size of each school and its classes, the grade point average for each school, and property prices in the area around each school as a measure of socioeconomic status. Finally, they performed statistical analyses on these responses to determine which factors were most closely related with a desire to continue on to higher education.
This revealed that none of the school-level factors, including school and class size, grade point average of the school and property prices, had any influence on the desire to continue to higher education. In contrast, several factors related to parents and home life, such as parental educational aspirations, maternal academic support and having a desk to work on, did have an influence. As did gender, with girls more likely than boys to want to continue to higher education. And while school-level factors didn't have any influence, performance at school did: high academic grades were the single strongest predictor of a pupil's desire to continue to higher education, while enjoying school was also an important factor.
"The major finding arising from the present study is that none of the school level variables used in our analysis contributes to the explanation of pupils' aspirations for higher education," said Šabić. "In other words, pupils who have similar individual characteristics but attend different schools will likely hold similar aspirations for higher education.
"Another important finding is that parents can influence their child's aspirations by expressing their expectations regarding the child's educational path and by providing the basic conditions for completing homework and learning (i.e. a desk to work on)."
This is the first study to investigate the influence of such a large number of factors on the desire to progress to higher education, and while it focused on pupils in Croatia, Šabić and Jokić think their findings could apply to other similar educational systems.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191118072556.htm
New study dispels myths about what makes youth sports fun for kids
Girls and boys alike rank trying your best and working hard as key to having fun; winning ranked 40th in importance
Science Daily/November 14, 2019
George Washington University
A new study looks at what makes organized sports fun for kids, and some of the findings might surprise you. The new study, published today, dispels the popular myth that what makes sports the most fun for girls are the social aspects, like friendships, while for boys the fun factor has to do with competition.
"Our data indicate girls and boys are more similar than different when it comes to what makes playing sports fun," said Amanda J. Visek, PhD, an associate professor of exercise and nutrition sciences at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH). "What counts most for girls and boys are things like 'trying your best,' 'working hard,' 'staying active,' and 'playing well together as a team.' These findings are the same for athletes at younger and older ages and across recreational and more competitive levels of play."
Visek's study is a follow-up to the original research she and her colleagues at the Milken Institute SPH previously conducted that engaged soccer players ages eight to 19 in concept mapping all of the determinants that make playing sports fun for players. The resultant maps, called FUN MAPS, uncovered 81 fun-determinants within 11 fun-factors. This new study took a closer look at that data and found that, among the 81 determinants of fun, 'winning' ranked No. 40 in importance, scoring farther down on the list than many might have guessed.
At the same time, this study did find some small yet intriguing differences in fun priorities, depending on the age or gender of the young athletes.
For example, younger players reported it was more important to have a coach who allowed them to 'play different positions' than older players. This study's findings underscore other research that suggests younger players are more likely to benefit from this strategy compared to older, more developed athletes.
"Sport sampling -- allowing kids to play several different sports -- as well as the opportunity for kids, especially those at younger ages, to get experience playing all of the different positions within a sport, is important for their athletic development," Visek said.
In addition, boys rated 'copying the moves and tricks of professional athletes' and 'improving athletic skills to play at the next level' as more important to having fun on the playing field when compared to girls. Visek and her research team think this might be a result of boys having more male professional athletes to look up to and identify with than girls, who have fewer female professional athletes to emulate.
These findings, among others that the study unveils, can be used by sport organizations to make their programs more fun and thus keep kids playing longer. Kids in the United States who drop out of organized sports typically do so by middle school, claiming that games and practices just aren't fun anymore.
Importantly, organized sports are one way to keep kids engaged in physical activity -- a habit that can help kids sustain a healthy lifestyle, keep them fit, and help them maintain a healthy body weight. More than one out of three U.S. children and adolescents are overweight or obese, and Visek believes that providing kids with higher quality, more fun sport experiences might be one solution toward promoting children's health.
One limitation of this study was that the participants were all soccer players. Visek's research team asked the players to rate the importance of all the determinants and to respond keeping in mind all of the sports they play. Although most of the players were multi-sport athletes who participated in other sports in addition to soccer, Visek says additional research is necessary to ensure the findings apply to other team sports, as well.
The findings of this study suggest that coaches and parents may be missing the mark if they push a winning season or mistakenly reinforce perceived gender differences.
"When it comes to organized sports, kids just want to have fun," Visek said. "This research does not support the common gender and developmental stereotypes we tend to make about kids in sports."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191114100903.htm