Browsing by Subject "harrastaminen"

The objective of this study was to find out why adolescents stop taking part in organized sports. The aim of the qualitative study was to understand and get answers from adolescents themselves. The interest was to find out what exercise means to young people and what are the reasons for dropping out from organized sport. Studies show that physical activity declines and participation in organized sports reduces significantly in adolescence. The target group in this study was ten young people who had stopped taking part in organized sports. Participated adolescents were 12–18 years old. The material was collected by themed interviews. The interviews progressed through three themes. These three themes were: 1. the meanings of sports hobbies, 2. quitting sports hobbies and 3. exercise in the future. Due to the corona pandemic situation, most of the interviews were performed remotely. All the interviews were recorded. The material was analyzed using theory-guided content analysis. As a result of the study, doing sports had had different kinds of meanings for young people. There was also found different reasons for dropping out from sports in this study. The reasons were: competing priorities and other leisure activities, decreased motivation, negative experiences, lack of a suitable team or sports club, an injury and a want to change to another hobby. The results of the study confirmed the notion that the meanings and causes of doing sports may change in adolescence. Study showed that disciplined and serious competitive sport activities did not attract adolescents to participate to sports. Young people hoped that doing sports would rather be relaxed than serious leisure activity. The conclusion was that young people`s wishes should be considered when planning sport activities for young people. Also, the low effort sport club activities should be increased in Finland. In addition, the negative experiences of adolescents with sport activities which emerged from the material, are issues that need further research.