The Relation between Sports Participation and Academic Achievement: The Mediating Role of Parental Support and Self-Esteem

Sports participation reported in a positive relationship with health and academic achievement. Sports participation may improve cognitive health leading to improved academic achievement. Some other factors may also be involved in this regard including parental support and self-esteem. In this study, we examined the relationship between sports participation, parental support, self-esteem and academic achievement due to concern about reduced education level of students and serious lack of research regarding this issue in Pakistan. We hypothesized that sports participation would influence students’ academic achievement. We further conceptualized a mediation model in which sports participation enhanced academic achievement through enhancing parental support and self-esteem. 248 students from three universities of Pakistan (male = 188; mean age = 17.5, SD = 1.15; female = 60; mean age =17.3, SD = 1.18) participated in the study, in which questionnaires were used to measure parental support, sports participation, and self-esteem. Two scales were used to measure parental support (school based parental support and sports participation based parental support). Sports participation level was measured using an adapted version of The Physical Activity Index (PAI) Scale consisting of 3 items. Rosenberg self-esteem scale assessed self-esteem. Data analysis was performed using the structural equation modelling.We found no direct relationship between sports participation and academic achievement. We found parental support and self-esteem as mediators in the relationship between sports participation and academic achievement. The mediational models suggested focus on vital role of parental support and self-esteem to have better academic performance. DOI : Coming Soon Corresponding author: Jin Wang, College of Education, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, china, Mirpur University of science and technology (MUST) Azad Kashmir Pakistan. Email: jinwang47@live.cn


Introduction
In every society, one of the main aim of parents and teachers for the students is to succeed better academically. The factors that affect academic achievement are complex, including intra-personal, inter-personal, organizational, community, and environmental variables. For this reason it is important to know the factors that are likely to have an influence on the students' academic achievement. Self-esteem is a key intra-personal variable and parental support is a key inter personal variable that affect academic achievement. Many earlier researches have suggested that sports participation improves mental health which in turn results improved academic achievement. With growing research on the positive relationship between sports participation and academic achievement, more focus on the students' sports participation is needed. Several studies have suggested that sports participation, parental support [1,2] and self -esteem [3,4] play a crucial role in determining academic achievement. However, researchers have studied these factors independently, which is insufficient to make it clear that how sports participation, parental support, self-esteem and academic achievement interact with each other. The main aim of research in this field is to understand the mechanisms through which sports participation influences academic achievement by analyzing the relationship between all of these factors in a single study. Before this the studies about sports participation and academic achievement [5], parental support and sports participation [6], self-esteem and sports participation [7], were carried out in other countries but this is the first study conducted in Pakistan, where the standards of sports are not appropriate according to the requirements [8] and parental role, educational environment, students sports participation is different from those countries in which already conducted research. We consider that a difference may exist between Pakistan and other countries in terms of student's sports participation, parental support for student's sports participation and academics so that the already established theory may not fit the Pakistani situation. Pakistan is a developing country facing many challenges, where parental support, students' self-esteem, infrastructure for sports participation and academic performance is different from other countries, so the already established theory regarding sports participation and academic achievement cannot be generalized to Pakistan.

Sports Participation and Academic Achievement
Previous studies have provided evidence that sports participation has a positive association with cognitive and physical health. These findings also support that children and adolescents who are more involved in motor abilities or physical activities are more physically and mentally active than those with less involvement in motor skills [9]. For this association, school environment plays a significant role [10]. Sports participation can be helpful to increase student's motivation, teamwork, and will power leading to improved educational outcomes. There has been an increase in research about the factors having relationship with sports participation and academic achievement of students. A correlation has been found between sports participation and academic achievement of the students [5]. Results of numerous studies show that sports participation contributes to better academic achievement and educational aspirations [11,12,5].

Role of Parental Support as a Mediator in Relationship between Sports Participation and Academic Achievement
Social influence defined as the force exerted by parents, friends, teachers, and relatives is one of the factors associated with adolescent's sports participation and academic achievement [13,14]. Social support is positively linked with physical activity [15]. Adolescents' physical activity is also associated with demographic psychological, social and physical environmental variables [16].  [7]. However, other researchers [41] have reported a weak link between sports participation and self-esteem or even a negative relationship [38]. Gibbons and Lynn (1997) argued that "there is little and conflicting evidence that participation in sports has a relationship with self-esteem" (p. 56) [42].
There are several factors that contribute to academic achievement. In a school setting, self-esteem is vital because it is an important underlying factor in promoting student motivation, persistence and academic success [43]. Self-esteem has long been considered an essential component of good mental health. It includes beliefs as to whether an individual can expect success or failure, how much effort should be put forth, whether failure at a task will "hurt," and whether he or she will become more capable as a result of difficult experiences [44]. The relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement has been well documented in the literature. Different studies have reached the conclusion that academic achievement and self-esteem are positively correlated [45,46]. Purky (1970) found that self-esteem is related to some components of success, either academic or verbal [47]. He concluded that there is continuous interaction between self-esteem and academic achievement.
In conclusion, students who have greater sports participation will have high level of self-esteem. The resulting high level self-esteem will result in promoting student motivation, persistence, thereby increasing their academic achievement. Thus, in this study, we aim to examine the role of parental support and self-esteem as mediating variables between academic achievement and sports participation. Therefore, we formed the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: sports participation will directly affect academic achievement of the students.

Students' Demographic Information
Students were asked about their age and gender.
Academic Achievement

Sports Participation
In this study we included sport as a physical activity that has a sport governing body and, is competitive by its nature and organization and is generally accepted as being a sport e.g., basketball, tennis, badminton, cricket and football (http:// www.ausport.gov.au/supporting/nso/asc_recognition).
We used an adapted version of The Physical Activity Index (PAI) Scale [48] in the present study. (SRMR, less than 0.07) [51]. All data analyses were conducted using the SPSS and AMOS version 21.

Preliminary Analysis
Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA)  Findings from the structural equational models indicated that parental support and self-esteem fully mediated the relationship between sports participation and academic achievement, see Figure 1.

Discussion
In the current study we examined the relationship between parental support, sports participation, self-esteem and academic achievement.
Unfortunately, Students in Pakistan are facing many problems in educational institutes due to several factors.
A key, original aspect of the present study was that it For example, in resource-limited settings such as Pakistan, student academic achievement and sports participation is not satisfactory. This study tried to explore these unanswered questions about the potential pathways by which self-esteem, parental support, and sports participation affect student academic achievement. Due to concern about reduced education level of students, the current study focused on major factors that can be related with students' academic achievement.
In the present study, we aimed to explore the relationship between parental support, self-esteem,  [6,17,35] that also showed that parental support is positively related to sports participation of adolescents. However, previous studies were conducted on samples from western countries.
Thus, it was important to examine whether the role of parental support for sports participation also applies to Pakistani students. Sports participation is related to better mental and physical health. We also found that students who had higher levels of sports participation had greater parental support. To conclude, this study provides empirical support for the relationship between sports participation and academic achievement [15] mediated through parental support.
Our results found that sports participation was directly associated with self-esteem. Previous researchers also found positive relationship between sports participation and self-esteem [37,38]. Before this many types of research have focused on the association between self-esteem and academic achievement [52].
As many previous pieces of research have yielded ambiguous results about a relationship between selfesteem and academic achievement [5,54]. Our results showed that students with high level self-esteem had high academic achievement.