An Examination of Youth Sport Specialization Patterns and Perceptions Between Developmental Stages and Competitive Contexts

BACKGROUND: Youth sport specialization remains a concerning trend for developing young people, as early and intensive specialization has linked to harmful physical and psychosocial outcomes. Further research is merited to determine how participants’ perceptions of sport specialization may be driving their decision of whether to specialize, as well as how these perceptions and specialization patterns may differ based on their developmental level (ie., elementary, middle, or high school), and their competitive context (ie., recreational/community-based, club/travel, or interscholastic). PURPOSE: To compare youth athletes’ degree of sport specialization and their perceptions of sport specialization based on their developmental level and competitive context. METHODS: Athletes completed a self-administered survey comprised of 1) Demographic characteristics and sport participation history; 2) The 3-item Jayanthi “degree” of sport specialization scale; 3) The Youth Sport Specialization Perceptions Survey, which quantifies athletes’ sport specialization attitudes on a continuum from extremely unfavorable (low scores) to extremely favorable (high scores). Descriptive analyses were conducted for demographic and sport participation characteristics. One-way ANOVAs were conducted to examine group differences based on developmental stage and competitive context. To examine group differences in the athletes’ degree of specialization classification, chi-squared tests were performed for both developmental stage and competitive context. RESULTS: 559 participants (n = 209 (37.39%) were female) completed this survey. The results of the one-way ANOVA for developmental stage indicated that the groups did not significantly differ in their perceptions of sport specialization (F = .191; p = .826). Similarly, no significant group differences emerged in perceptions of sport specialization based on competitive context (F = 1.43; p = .239). However, the athletes’ degree of specialization significantly differed both by their developmental stage (χ (2) (6, N = 559) = 103.41, p<.001) and by competitive context (χ (2) (6, N = 559) = 124.51, p<.001). CONCLUSION: Though athletes’ perceptions of sport specialization were similar across developmental stage and competitive context, adopted patterns of specialization differed by group. Our results suggest that athletes are more likely to adopt a specialized pathway as they develop, and athletes in the club and interscholastic contexts tend to be more specialized than those in recreational/community-based programs. In sum, our findings indicate that participant’s attitudes toward specialization are less salient in their decision of whether to specialize when compared to their developmental stage and competitive context. This underscores the importance of not only promoting healthy specialization attitudes, but also in creating environments that are conducive to non-specialized participation.