School-age involvement in sport and perceived quality of sport services

Abstract

Creating an active and healthy lifestyle starts in infancy and adolescence. A number of individual and collective factors affect whether or not sport is taken up and continued, which is an essential element in achieving a healthy lifestyle in adolescence and extending this into adult life. This study sets out to determine the perceived quality of the sport service provided by schools with organised physical activities, and whether the most positively assessed public organisations have a higher percentage of participation than those with a more negative assessment. The study population was 1109 adolescents from 28 towns comprising part of a sport provision system. A self-devised questionnaire with all the necessary properties, validity and reliability was conducted. The results showed that 42% of the adolescents take part in organized physical sport, and give the service provided a positive assessment. It was found that in organisations with a more positive assessment, the town has a higher rate of involvement in sporting activities.