The Effects of Parental Involvement on Child Motivation to Continue Playing Soccer

Abstract

This study investigated the impacts of parent involvement with female high school athletes’ motivation to play club level soccer and their desire to continue playing in college. Motivation is made up of a multitude of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. For the purpose of this study, parental involvement was defined by the frequency of doing specific activities (i.e. driving their children to practices/games, talking about college soccer, picking which team their child plays for, etc.). Athlete motivation was defined by similar questions asked from their viewpoint. Involvement and motivation were measured by a self-report questionnaire using Likert scale items. The study consisted of 20 parents (mother or father) and their child (all female). The null hypothesis stated that parents’ responses would not differ significantly from the child responses to the same questions. Not rejecting the null hypothesis supported the theory that parental involvement is correlated with player motivation. This was tested using a set of 16 paired t-tests using the conventional 5% significance level. The findings support the correlation between parental involvement and child motivation because in 14 out of the 16 comparisons, the null hypothesis was not rejected. To further enhance this research, this study should be replicated on a bigger scale, including a larger and more diverse sample size, as well as in depth data collection about family status affecting involvement.