The Enjoyable sport : What makes youth sports fun - according to the children?

A common reason for engaging in sport activities is because it’s fun and enjoyable. But what is it that makes a certain activity fun and enjoyable? The answer isn’t so obvious and may be different depending on who is answering it. This study aimed to increase the knowledge regarding what is fun about sports. More specifically, to examine youth sports and children engaging in youth sports. Therefore, a questionnaire containing 20 different statements were distributed to children who were asked to estimate in which degree these statements contributed to making their sport fun. Furthermore, this study wanted to compare the ratings of these statements between teams and individual sports. The study included 39 children who were active in teams and 32 children who participated in individual sport activities with a total mean age of 11,72. The results showed that intrinsic factors were most important and that trying your best was the highest rated statement. On the other hand, winning had the lowest overall rating. The tests also showed that children who engage in team sports values being with friends in a higher extent than those who are active in individual sports. The conclusion of this study was that children found intrinsic factors to be most important when it comes to having fun. Some of the most important factors were trying your best and learning new things. Extrinsic factors such as winning and competing against others didn’t contribute as much to having fun. Significant differences were found between the groups when it comes to being with friends, winning and having a crowd cheering for yo