Physical Literacy Journeys from Primary School to Young Adulthood

Longitudinal analyses were conducted using data from the NICHD SECCYD using SEM. These models are meant to represent the development of children within the scope of physical activity (PA) including their attitudes and behaviors given predictive factors. The first set of models represent parent predictor variables’ associations over time with their children’s enjoyment of PA. Parents with higher scores of enjoyment of PA themselves, and belief it is important to encourage their child to participate in PA had associations with higher scores of their children enjoying PA from grades 3 to 6. These relationships were not present from grades 6 to 9. The second set of models represent mean growth for children who play sports from grades 6 to 12 in four constructs: 1) “how much did you like playing this sport?” 2) “is the coach or leader of this sport someone you can trust, that listens to you and cares about you, and thinks that you are important?” 3) “did the coach or leader help you learn new skills or things you didn’t know about before?” and 4) “how well did you get along with other kids in the sport?” Furthermore covariate models on how much children liked playing the sport were tested for best fit with models time-constrained or time unconstrained. All variable means diminished over time and time-constrained models were better fitting for covariates indicating the relationships between liking playing the sport and the three covariates are time-invariant (does not change over time) between grades 6 and 12. The third set of models tested associations between predictor variables at grade 6, playing sports at both and neither time points of ages 15 and 18, and age 26 mental health and PA behavior variables. High levels of child enjoyment of PA, parent enjoyment of PA, and device-assessed vigorous PA were associated with playing sports at both ages while high levels of behavior problems and parent feelings that PE was important were negatively associated with playing at both ages. High levels of child enjoyment of PA were negatively associated with not playing sports at both ages. Playing sports at both ages was associated with better scores of age 26 well-being, depression, organized athletic time use and fitness activity time use.