In “It’s Not How Much You Play, But How Much You Enjoy The Game: The Longitudinal Associations Between Adolescents’ Self-Esteem and the Frequency vs Enjoyment of Involvement In Sports”, authors Paul J.  C. Adachi and Teena Willoughby discuss the topic of the bidirectional associations in adolescent athletic involvement and self-esteem.  The two authors seek to answer two research questions:                                                     1) “Does self-esteem predict frequency in involvement in sports over time, or does the frequency of athletic involvement predict self-esteem?”.               2) “Is enjoyment of sports associated with self esteem?                                            To answer these questions, Adachi and Willoughby surveyed a group of 1492 high school aged adolescents repeatedly over the course of four years. The students would be given questionnaires by researchers in a classroom setting, and asked to respond to questions on their athletic involvement using a five-point scale. The results were then analyzed using an auto regressive cross-lagged model, which organized the data into a form from which conclusions could be drawn. Interestingly, the authors accounted for many factors in their research, including gender, parental education, and at risk backgrounds. Based on the results, Willoughby and Adachi came to the conclusion that higher self esteem results in higher involvement in sports, though the reverse is not true. They also found that higher self-esteem tends to result in greater enjoyment of athletic activity. Notably, neither of these results showed any significant variation by gender. The authors suggested that enjoyment may be more important than frequency when discussing involvement in sports.

I found the study to be interesting and well done. I especially appreciated the careful attention the researchers paid to the variables involved which might alter results. For example, when looking at the relationship between self-esteem and enjoyment, they were careful to control for frequency. My only complaint was that I would have appreciated if they looked more directly at the differences between frequency and enjoyment. Because the two ideas were evaluated in different questions, the comparison of the two seemed somewhat of an afterthought.

J. Youth Adolesence (2014) 43:137-145