Sports in Education
Sports in Education is a vital piece of the high school experience. In my research, I looked at the impact that sports had on the social and cognitive development of high school students. Social and cognitive development are closely related; with social development being our development by interreacting with others and cognitive development being how we progress with skills such as motor skills, problem solving, and memory. In my study, I present that, overall, sports has a positive impact on the social and cognitive development. Sports lets students fine tune motor skills, enhances long term memory skills by learning a playbook, and helps with decision making. On the social development side, I dive in and find that sports increase the self-esteem and self-efficacy of students and this directly relates to the classroom. When a student has a sense of belonging and sense of community in sports, that translates into the classroom setting. I also discuss how Parkinson’s Law debunks the myth that sports takes away from homework time. After looking at both the social and cognitive domains of development, I concluded that sports have more of a positive impact on education and the development of a student than not playing sports. In one of my findings, they found that after analyzing 35,000 high school students, they were present at school 3 more weeks on average than non-athletes and boasted a .55-.75 better GPA than non-athletes. While sports might seem like it just keeps kids out of trouble, it actually enhances the developmental process.
EDUC 330, Child Development
Brian Kaelin
L203, poster #14
10 AM – Noon