First Advisor

Brustad, Robert John, 1952-

Document Type

Dissertation

Date Created

7-1-2016

Department

College of Natural and Health Sciences, Kinesiology Nutrition and Dietetics, KiND Student Work

Abstract

Children’s sport needs to be designed in ways that is developmentally-appropriate to maximize the possibilities that participants will have positive experiences that will result in sustained interest and motivation. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to compare the impact of playing with modified or traditional tennis equipment on children’s perceptions of enjoyment, perceived competence, and intentions to continue participation in the sport of tennis in the State of Kuwait. Focus group interviews were used to understand children’s perceptions of their tennis experiences through the utilization of the modified and traditional tennis equipment. The quality of children’s skill acquisition was also examined. Quantitative analyses were computed through repeated measures analysis of variance (RM ANOVA) to determine changes in children’s enjoyment, perceived competence, and intention to continue to participate in tennis from pretest to posttest. The findings indicated that children in the modified tennis equipment group improved significantly more in their tennis enjoyment, perceived competence, and intention to continue to play tennis than did the children in the traditional tennis equipment group. Differences in children’s skill acquisition was examined through the Mann-Whitney U and revealed significant improvements in forehand and backhand performance for the children in the modified tennis equipment group from pre-test to post-test. Qualitative findings were consistent with the quantitative results. Children in the modified tennis equipment group reported high levels of enjoyment, perceived competence, and intention to continue to play tennis in the future. Conversely, children in the traditional tennis equipment group expressed less interest in tennis and had lower enjoyment, perceived competence, and intention to continue to play tennis in the future. The findings from this study provide empirical evidence that developmentally appropriate sports equipment can be beneficial for youth and can contribute to positive outcomes in terms of more favorable competence perceptions and increased motivation to play sport. In addition, the use of modified tennis equipment was found to be beneficial in contributing to actual skill performance. Further exploration of the potential benefits of developmentally appropriate equipment is needed.

Keywords

Tennis, Sports for children, Equipment, Kuwait

Extent

169 pages

Rights Statement

Copyright is held by the author.

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