Adolescent Involvement in Sports Activities and Internalisation of Moral Values
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33607/bjshs.v1i100.43Abstract
Background. Relatively little knowledge is available to date about moral values among adolescents. As
participation in sports activities may contribute to positive youth development, this study aims to examine the
relations between adolescents’ involvement in sports activities and the internalisation of their moral values. We
assessed this relationship with respect to gender as well.
Methods. The sample included 385 adolescents (192 girls and 193 boys) between 13 to 16 years of age
(M age = 14.6, SD =1.11); 43.4% (n = 167) of the research participants were involved in competitive sports. The studied
adolescents had participated in their respective sport for an average of 2.97 (SD = 1.12) years. The internalisation of
moral values was assessed using the 24-item adolescent-report Moral Values Internalisation Questionnaire (Hardy,
Padilla-Walker, & Carlo, 2008). Four forms of value regulation were assessed (external, introjected, identified and
integrated). Overall value internalisation was also evaluated.
Results. Significant differences were found between adolescent involvement in sports activities and external
regulation (p < .05), introjected regulation (p < .01), identified regulation (p < .05) as well as integrated regulation
(p < .01). In depth analyses showed that the four forms of value regulations were higher for the athletes with
experience up to three years and tended to be lower in the group of athletes with higher sports experience. The same
relationship was established in the sample of boys, but not in that of girls.
Conclusions. The research results demonstrated that the identified regulation manifested more than other
regulations did (external, introjected and integrated). Adolescent athletes possessed higher points of moral value
internalisation in all regulations than adolescent non-athletes. Nevertherless, referring to sports experience, the
internalisation forms of moral values of adolescent athletes with more than the three-year sport experience did not
differ in comparison with those of adolescent non-athletes. Research results show that the internalisation of moral
values for adolescents with higher sports experience is lower compared to that of adolescents with lower sports
experience.
Keywords: adolescents’ moral values, participation in sport, sports experience.
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