Too much competition can be a turn-off for some students

Leadership in Sport

To really get the most out of sport education it is important to teach it in the appropriate way. When trying to teach leadership skills, martial arts have been shown to be quite efficacious. However the martial arts must be taught in the correct way. When the sport is taught with a philosophy of respect, patience, honor and responsibility, students exhibited a decreased amount of delinquency. When martial arts was taught with an emphasis on self-defense and free sparring, the positive effect of decreased delinquency was not seen.

Attitudes Towards School

Studies have shown that when sports education is introduced into schools, attendance goes up. However, students react differently to sports activities that are recreational versus those that are more competitive. In some situations sports can keep students away from school if the thrust is too competitive.

Among those students who are most likely to feel excluded from school and would have a tendency to stay away, the availability of sports in school, in addition to well-placed school furniture, can contribute to improved attendance among the at-risk population. Sports activities in school can often be a happy way to draw children and young people towards better attendance in school.

However, there are studies that show that over doing competitive youth sport can be a turn-off to some students. On the other hand there are many cases in which coaches, and sometimes parents too, push young athletes to drop their studies so they can dedicate all of their time to sports. Unfortunately this behavior is not rare.