Children's Concepts of Sportsmanship in the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Grades

Abstract

Children's knowledge of sportsmanship and growth in this knowledge after hearing 12 short sports stories was studied. Fourth, fifth, and sixth grade children wrote freely what sportsmanship meant to them, before and after hearing the stories. A group of pupils in another school wrote their ideas but did not hear the stories. Discussions were not utilized by either group. There were no significant differences between the two groups in the number of ideas written; the relationship of the number of ideas written to mental age was positive and substantial; that for chronological age was positive and low; “good sports” wrote significantly more ideas than “poor sports.”