Tykes and timbits: Exploring objectives and outcomes of preschooler sport
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In recent years, there appears to be a trend towards children participating in sport at increasingly early ages, yet developmental outcomes of sport participation have been examined primarily among older children and adolescents (Fraser-Thomas et al., 2005). This study explored the perceived objectives and outcomes of preschooler sport. Eight childcare providers, 19 parents, and 57 preschoolers (aged 2-5 years) from three urban centres in southern Ontario engaged in interviews and focus groups, centered on their experiences with preschooler sport. Content analysis was inductive and deductive, guided by key concepts of the Developmental Model of Sport Participation (Côté & Fraser-Thomas, 2015) and the Long Term Athlete Development Model (LTAD, Canadian Sport for Life, 2015). Findings reflect perceived objectives and outcomes paralleling those of youth sport. Participants spoke most prominently about preschooler sport as a platform for psychosocial and life skill development (i.e., interpersonal skills, confidence, competence, being a team player, learning to win and lose), in addition to being a pathway to physical health and motor skill development; however, there was often little consensus on whether developmental outcomes were actually attained, and what the mechanisms and processes were within preschooler sport, which facilitated such development. For example, it was suggested that most preschoolers were unable to cognitively process complexities of cooperative play required to be a team player. We conclude that while preschooler sport may facilitate positive development, policies, programming, and coaching modifications are required to consistently assure beneficial outcomes, while considerable research is necessary to assess the effectiveness of programs moving forward.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".