Sport et développement : l es effets de la participation au programme Sport-études sur le développement des élèves-athlètes
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- Développement positif de l’adolescent
- expériences développementales
- athlete development
- sport
- performance
- Programme Sport-études
- Sources de plaisir
- développement de l'athlète
- Positive youth development
- developmental experiences
- sources of enjoyment in youth sport
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Résumé
La pratique sportive comme moyen pour contribuer au développement d’un individu est la pierre d’assise de ce projet de recherche. Découlant d’une hausse d’intérêt envers la pratique sportive organisée et encadrée (ParticipACTION, 2015), une tendance nouvelle se dessine : la multiplications des programmes sportifs hautement spécialisés, bâtis et imaginés pour maximiser le potentiel sportif des jeunes athlètes, sans égard à leur participation sportive à long terme ou à leur développement psychosocial (Côté & Hancock, 2016). Au Québec, le programme Sport-études a vu le jour au milieu des années 80 afin de répondre aux besoins croissants d’élèves-athlètes souhaitant s’engager dans une démarche d’excellence sportive, sans pour autant délaisser les bancs d’école. Au fil des années, ce projet à vocation particulière a grandement évolué de manière à permettre, annuellement, à plus de 5000 élèves de niveau secondaire de pratiquer leur discipline de prédilection de façon intensive. Si des mesures spéciales sont prises pour intégrer le sport à leur horaire scolaire quotidien, les exigences en terme de temps consacré à l’entrainement dès l’entrée au secondaire ainsi qu’un contexte fortement incliné vers la performance porte à réflexion. Quels sont les effets de la participation à ce programme sur le développement des élèves-athlètes?
Pour répondre à cette question, la théorie bioécologique du développement humain (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) est adoptée comme lentille théorique. Celle-ci, combinée avec l’approche par développement positif de l’adolescent (J. V. Lerner, Phelps, Forman, & Bowers, 2009) et du modèle développemental de la participation sportive (Côté & Fraser-Thomas, 2016) nous offre les outils pour décrire les conditions de participation de ce programme, mieux comprendre l’environnement dans lequel l’élève-athlète évolue ainsi que les expériences développementales qu’il vit. Ainsi, nous avons d’abord effectué une analyse documentaire des programmes de soutien au développement de l’excellence que chaque fédération sportive doit soumettre pour être mandataire du programme Sport-études. Le fruit de cette analyse nous a permis de positionner le programme Sport-études comme un programme résolument axé vers l’excellence sportive. Ensuite, nous avons distribué un questionnaire en ligne à 226 élèves-athlètes âgés de 11 et 17 ans (M=15,08, ÉT=1,46) de deux établissements scolaires différents. Ce questionnaire nous a permis d’évaluer les conditions de participation, les expériences développementales vécues (D. J. MacDonald, Côté, Eys, & Deakin, 2012), les sources de plaisir liées à la pratique sportive (Wiersma, 2001) ainsi que la perception du soutien à l’autonomie de l’entraineur (Hagger et al., 2007). Pour compléter notre méthodologie, nous avons mené deux entretiens de groupes (N=15) avec des élèves-athlètes de cinquième secondaire. Durant ces entrevues nous avons repris les thèmes abordés dans le questionnaire en ligne, en plus d’aborder la relation avec les parents.
En résumé, nous constatons que le programme Sport-études induit résolument une approche par spécialisation et investissement hâtif en ayant des conditions de participation sportive intensive dès l’entrée au secondaire. Si cette approche convient pour l’atteinte de l’expertise de certains sports comme la gymnastique (Law, Côté, & Ericsson, 2008), elle comporte son lot d’effets négatifs telles les blessures sportives et le stress (Hecimovich, 2004), deux éléments que nous avons observé. Malgré cette approche, les élèves-athlètes ont rapporté des expériences plutôt positives – l’initiative et la capacité à se fixer des objectifs obtenant les meilleurs scores – et semblent tirer leur plaisir de sources motivationnelles intrinsèques. Les relations avec les agents socialisants déterminants – parents et entraineurs – nous ont apparu comme positives. La nature du sport s’est avérée la variable contrôle engendrant le plus de différences significatives. De manière générale, les élèves-athlètes de sports individuels semblent avoir une expérience significativement plus positive que ceux de sports d’équipe. La dichotomie entre les exigences des sports d’équipe et les conditions de pratique sportive intensive semble être l’explication la plus plausible pour expliquer ces différences. En conclusion, si la mission de concilier avec succès le sport et les études tout en maintenant un équilibre de vie est atteinte, une meilleure organisation des conditions de participation pour répondre aux besoins particuliers de chaque sport est à considérer, sans quoi la participation à long terme et le développement psychosocial des élèves-athlètes pourraient être compromis.
Sport as a means to foster youth development is fundamental to this research project. In regards to the growing popularity toward organised sport practice among youth (ParticipACTION, 2015), a new trend has arisen: the proliferation of highly specialized sport programs, built and thought of as a way to maximise youth’s performance potential, regardless of their long term sport participation or personal development (Côté & Hancock, 2016). In Québec, the programme Sport-études saw the light in the mid-80’s with the sole purpose of addressing a fast growing need in the sport community, that is: to help youth committed to excellence in sport pursue their goals without hindering their educational process. As time passed, this program grew to a point where, yearly, more than 5 000 student-athletes (age 12 to 17) benefit from the special circumstances within which they can fully commit to a single sport. If that intensive training regimen is well integrated to the student-athlete’s daily school schedule, we question the early specialisation and investment that seems to be encouraged by the program’s own settings. Therefore, we seek to understand what the impacts are of programme Sport-études’s participation on youth development? The developmental process is the heart of our interests. To assess it, we align this project within the bioecological model of human development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Also, we integrate knowledge from the positive youth development literature (J. V. Lerner et al., 2009) as well as the Developmental Model of Sport Participation (Côté & Fraser-Thomas, 2016). Combined all together, these conceptual tools will help us effectively describe program’s orientations, the sport’s environment as well as student-athlete’s developmental experiences. To answer the main question of our research, we first conducted an analysis of documents that sport federations need to submit to be admitted as a part of the programme Sport-études. By doing so, we confirmed that this program firmly supports the sport expertise development pathway. Thereafter, we distributed an online questionnaire to 226 students-athletes aged between 11 and 17 years old (M=15.08, SD=1.46) from two different schools. This questionnaire helped us evaluate sport’s setting, sources of enjoyment (Wiersma, 2001), developmental experiences (D. J. MacDonald et al., 2012) and perceived coach-autonomy support (Hagger et al., 2007). To complete our methodology, we organised focus groups of student-athletes in their final year of the programme Sport-études (N=15). For these groups our in-depth discussion focused mainly around some of the items from questionnaire, as well as the relationships with parents in the sport’s settings. With regards to the settings of the sport, we noted that the program Sport-études indeed encouraged an early specialization and investment approach. Even if such an approach can be beneficial to attain sport expertise in certain sports like gymnastics (Law et al., 2008), literature pinpoints that it can be detrimental for most of the others, notably reducing health and inducing stress (Hecimovich, 2004), two elements that emerge from our analysis. That said, even within these settings, student-athletes still reported more positives experiences – initiative and goal-setting as the most important – than negatives and seemed to draw the enjoyment mainly from intrinsic sources. Other than that, we noted that relationships with parents and coaches were both positive and, as expected (Côté, 1999, 2002) evolved over time. One of our main findings was a significant difference between the perception of the environment of athletes involved with individual sports and those who participate in a team sport. Generally speaking, the first had a much more positive perception than the latter. To explain that, we hypothesize that the environment within the program Sport-études are well suited for individual sport, but failed to meet the needs of team sports – too much practice, too early in youth’s sport development, we might suggest. As a concluding comment, if the main purpose of program Sport-études is to offer a way to combine success in school and sport, and all that with something of a life equilibrium, it is partly working. To ensure the maximum benefit of sport participation – performance, long term participation and personal development – a higher consideration of the setting of the sport must be taken into account, especially to be better tailored on each sport’s need in terms of development.
Sport as a means to foster youth development is fundamental to this research project. In regards to the growing popularity toward organised sport practice among youth (ParticipACTION, 2015), a new trend has arisen: the proliferation of highly specialized sport programs, built and thought of as a way to maximise youth’s performance potential, regardless of their long term sport participation or personal development (Côté & Hancock, 2016). In Québec, the programme Sport-études saw the light in the mid-80’s with the sole purpose of addressing a fast growing need in the sport community, that is: to help youth committed to excellence in sport pursue their goals without hindering their educational process. As time passed, this program grew to a point where, yearly, more than 5 000 student-athletes (age 12 to 17) benefit from the special circumstances within which they can fully commit to a single sport. If that intensive training regimen is well integrated to the student-athlete’s daily school schedule, we question the early specialisation and investment that seems to be encouraged by the program’s own settings. Therefore, we seek to understand what the impacts are of programme Sport-études’s participation on youth development? The developmental process is the heart of our interests. To assess it, we align this project within the bioecological model of human development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Also, we integrate knowledge from the positive youth development literature (J. V. Lerner et al., 2009) as well as the Developmental Model of Sport Participation (Côté & Fraser-Thomas, 2016). Combined all together, these conceptual tools will help us effectively describe program’s orientations, the sport’s environment as well as student-athlete’s developmental experiences. To answer the main question of our research, we first conducted an analysis of documents that sport federations need to submit to be admitted as a part of the programme Sport-études. By doing so, we confirmed that this program firmly supports the sport expertise development pathway. Thereafter, we distributed an online questionnaire to 226 students-athletes aged between 11 and 17 years old (M=15.08, SD=1.46) from two different schools. This questionnaire helped us evaluate sport’s setting, sources of enjoyment (Wiersma, 2001), developmental experiences (D. J. MacDonald et al., 2012) and perceived coach-autonomy support (Hagger et al., 2007). To complete our methodology, we organised focus groups of student-athletes in their final year of the programme Sport-études (N=15). For these groups our in-depth discussion focused mainly around some of the items from questionnaire, as well as the relationships with parents in the sport’s settings. With regards to the settings of the sport, we noted that the program Sport-études indeed encouraged an early specialization and investment approach. Even if such an approach can be beneficial to attain sport expertise in certain sports like gymnastics (Law et al., 2008), literature pinpoints that it can be detrimental for most of the others, notably reducing health and inducing stress (Hecimovich, 2004), two elements that emerge from our analysis. That said, even within these settings, student-athletes still reported more positives experiences – initiative and goal-setting as the most important – than negatives and seemed to draw the enjoyment mainly from intrinsic sources. Other than that, we noted that relationships with parents and coaches were both positive and, as expected (Côté, 1999, 2002) evolved over time. One of our main findings was a significant difference between the perception of the environment of athletes involved with individual sports and those who participate in a team sport. Generally speaking, the first had a much more positive perception than the latter. To explain that, we hypothesize that the environment within the program Sport-études are well suited for individual sport, but failed to meet the needs of team sports – too much practice, too early in youth’s sport development, we might suggest. As a concluding comment, if the main purpose of program Sport-études is to offer a way to combine success in school and sport, and all that with something of a life equilibrium, it is partly working. To ensure the maximum benefit of sport participation – performance, long term participation and personal development – a higher consideration of the setting of the sport must be taken into account, especially to be better tailored on each sport’s need in terms of development.
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