A Study on the Adjustment of School Children in Mini-Basketball

An examination of the relationship between sports participation and adjustment

Abstract

The purposes of this study, which consists of three studies, are to clarify the adjustment of the children who participate in mini-basketball, and to examine the relationship between sport participation and adjustment. The subjects were 1300 children who either participated or did not.
Both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies are applied to the subjects, and the following results were obtained.
1) The adjustment of those children participating in mini-basketball is very high and is supposed to have been influenced by participation in mini-basketball.
2) The adjustment of children is heightened by various conditions, such as play, sports, study and so on. But participation in team sports may be supposed to bring about a level of high adjustment.
3) Those children, who are provided with conditions that can heighten their adjustment, such as play, sports and so on, acquire very high adjustment levels, as in the cases of elemenetary school 4th and 5th graders.
4) When the children with high adjustment enter the 6th grade, their adjustment does not change or decrease, although they are provided with the same good conditions as the 4th and 5th graders. Judging from the fact that they, however, keep their adjustment higher than other children, it can be observed that adjustment dose not increase, after having reached a certain level, unless other factors are given.
This phenomenon is peculiar to the 6th graders, and the newly given factor may be supposed to be that which is called ‘study’.