Cargando…

Attitudes and Beliefs towards Sport Specialization, College Scholarships, and Financial Investment among High School Baseball Parents

Adolescent athletes are increasingly encouraged to specialize in a single sport year-round in an effort to receive a college scholarship. For collegiate baseball, only 11.7 scholarships are available for a 35-player team. The beliefs of the parents of baseball athletes towards sport specialization a...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Post, Eric G., Rosenthal, Michael D., Rauh, Mitchell J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6955882/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31835455
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sports7120247
_version_ 1783487031276470272
author Post, Eric G.
Rosenthal, Michael D.
Rauh, Mitchell J.
author_facet Post, Eric G.
Rosenthal, Michael D.
Rauh, Mitchell J.
author_sort Post, Eric G.
collection PubMed
description Adolescent athletes are increasingly encouraged to specialize in a single sport year-round in an effort to receive a college scholarship. For collegiate baseball, only 11.7 scholarships are available for a 35-player team. The beliefs of the parents of baseball athletes towards sport specialization are unknown, along with whether they have an accurate understanding of college baseball scholarship availability. The parents of high school baseball athletes were recruited to complete an anonymous questionnaire that consisted of (1) parent and child demographics, (2) child baseball participation information, and (3) parent attitudes and beliefs regarding sport specialization and college baseball scholarships. One hundred and fifty-five parents participated in the questionnaire (female: 52.9%, age: 49.4 ± 5.5 years old). The parents spent a median of 3000 USD [Interquartile Range (IQR): 1500–6000] on their child’s baseball participation. Most parents believed that specialization increased their child’s chances of getting better at baseball (N = 121, 79.6%). The parents underestimated the number of college baseball scholarships available per team (median [IQR]: 5 [0–5]), but 55 parents (35.9%) believed it was likely that their child would receive a college baseball scholarship. Despite having a realistic understanding of the limited college scholarships available, the parents were optimistic that their child would receive a baseball scholarship.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6955882
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-69558822020-01-23 Attitudes and Beliefs towards Sport Specialization, College Scholarships, and Financial Investment among High School Baseball Parents Post, Eric G. Rosenthal, Michael D. Rauh, Mitchell J. Sports (Basel) Article Adolescent athletes are increasingly encouraged to specialize in a single sport year-round in an effort to receive a college scholarship. For collegiate baseball, only 11.7 scholarships are available for a 35-player team. The beliefs of the parents of baseball athletes towards sport specialization are unknown, along with whether they have an accurate understanding of college baseball scholarship availability. The parents of high school baseball athletes were recruited to complete an anonymous questionnaire that consisted of (1) parent and child demographics, (2) child baseball participation information, and (3) parent attitudes and beliefs regarding sport specialization and college baseball scholarships. One hundred and fifty-five parents participated in the questionnaire (female: 52.9%, age: 49.4 ± 5.5 years old). The parents spent a median of 3000 USD [Interquartile Range (IQR): 1500–6000] on their child’s baseball participation. Most parents believed that specialization increased their child’s chances of getting better at baseball (N = 121, 79.6%). The parents underestimated the number of college baseball scholarships available per team (median [IQR]: 5 [0–5]), but 55 parents (35.9%) believed it was likely that their child would receive a college baseball scholarship. Despite having a realistic understanding of the limited college scholarships available, the parents were optimistic that their child would receive a baseball scholarship. MDPI 2019-12-10 /pmc/articles/PMC6955882/ /pubmed/31835455 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sports7120247 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Post, Eric G.
Rosenthal, Michael D.
Rauh, Mitchell J.
Attitudes and Beliefs towards Sport Specialization, College Scholarships, and Financial Investment among High School Baseball Parents
title Attitudes and Beliefs towards Sport Specialization, College Scholarships, and Financial Investment among High School Baseball Parents
title_full Attitudes and Beliefs towards Sport Specialization, College Scholarships, and Financial Investment among High School Baseball Parents
title_fullStr Attitudes and Beliefs towards Sport Specialization, College Scholarships, and Financial Investment among High School Baseball Parents
title_full_unstemmed Attitudes and Beliefs towards Sport Specialization, College Scholarships, and Financial Investment among High School Baseball Parents
title_short Attitudes and Beliefs towards Sport Specialization, College Scholarships, and Financial Investment among High School Baseball Parents
title_sort attitudes and beliefs towards sport specialization, college scholarships, and financial investment among high school baseball parents
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6955882/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31835455
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sports7120247
work_keys_str_mv AT postericg attitudesandbeliefstowardssportspecializationcollegescholarshipsandfinancialinvestmentamonghighschoolbaseballparents
AT rosenthalmichaeld attitudesandbeliefstowardssportspecializationcollegescholarshipsandfinancialinvestmentamonghighschoolbaseballparents
AT rauhmitchellj attitudesandbeliefstowardssportspecializationcollegescholarshipsandfinancialinvestmentamonghighschoolbaseballparents