Parent expectations towards participation to extracurricular sport activity of high school students

Purpose: Extracurricular activities are the activities that are carried out inside and outside of the school after the class depending upon a plan and program, and that contain the traits designed for the various purposes. This activities are important for adolescents in terms of discovery the skills, interests and strengths, and creating a chance to get to know themselves. Besides, the activities provide to strengthen the relationships with persons in school, and to build up academic success and moral life factors. This study aims to determine the expectations of parents from the extracurricular sportive activities. Material: In research, interwoven single case study design, one of the qualitative research approaches, was used. Easy accessible sample was benefited for the selection of study group. Parents of 14 students studying in different high schools in the city center of Kırıkkale in 2014-2015 academic years were included in the research. Data were obtained from the semi-structured interview form and applied a content analysis. Results: As a result of the obtained findings, it was figured out that expectations of parents from the extracurricular sportive activities are generally the contributions of activities on children to spend a quality leisure time. 5 categories were obtained as a result of analysis. These categories are “being a healthy individual”, “keeping away from the harmful habits”, “socializing”, “keeping away from the bad circle of friends”, “providing skill development” and “providing being an intellectual individual”. Conclusions: As a result, parental opinions revealed that extracurricular sportive activities are important in terms of children spending a quality leisure time. Parents’ expectations from these activities are also in this direction.


Introduction 1
Extracurricular sportive activities are the activities that are performed inside and outside of the school depending on a certain plan and program after the class and that contain features designed for various purposes [1]. In other words, extracurricular activities are defined as an activity that aims to develop children's some special skills and abilities, depending on certain rules, providing inspection through adults and being performed in a programmed way [2]. These activities enable individual to gain many characteristics. These characteristics are: providing physical and psychological security, gaining the sense of belonging to school, gaining positive social norm [3]. Besides, Activities provide the children giving individual an opportunity to develop the skills and providing adaptation to family, school and society [4].
Even though extracurricular activities have some negative results [5], the opinion that these activities have generally a positive effect on the adolescents is quite common [4]. Activities contain the features of adolescents making social circles, identifying their own abilities [5], the development of the sense of self-sufficiency, the increase in their academic successes and many other developmental factors [6]. It is stated that these activities particularly reduce the drug abuse of adolescents [5], and also reduce various behavior tendencies such as absconding from school [7] and committing a crime [8].
In addition, activities are useful for students to gain the sense of belonging to school [9] and to develop positive attitude for school [6]. Extracurricular activities that provide academic success and serve as an important intercessor [10] can be associated with children's sense of belonging to school [11], their motivation and academic success [12]. School success of adolescents who have the sense of belonging to school shows increase [13]. Studies that handle the relationship between the participation in the extracurricular activities and academic success of adolescents [14] revealed that there was an increase in the weighted educational composite point of the students who participated in extracurricular activities. Particularly, activities give adolescents a chance. They provide gaining and performing social, physical and intellectual skills in a wide area in school [15]. Activities gain to children being a member of society and contribute to public welfare and identify socially a group and belong to it [15]. In addition, to be able to create a social relation with peers and adults that will be able help at the present time and in the future and these activities provide experience and deal with the difficulties [15]. O'Brien & Rollefson [16] stated that extracurricular activities enable students to learn the importance of team work, individual and group work, physical power and strength, competition, being versatile, culture and society unity.
Since the activities are structured, they have influence on taking adolescents' post-school times under control [17]. Since parents have the chance to control the children's extracurricular times to some extent [18], the fact that thanks to these activities children spend the post-school time in a planned and programmed way minimizes the parents' anxieties. Knowledge, skill and ability that students gain from the field of sport prevent adolescents from bad habits by valuing ideally the leisure time. Because these activities are structured and contain inspection, so enable students to participate in the activities in a secure environment. Furthermore, activities give students an opportunity to reveal their own interests in a secure environment until the parents come to home after completing their works [19].
Parents' perspectives for extracurricular sportive activities and their expectations from these activities are the determinative factors in directing the children to these activities. The fact that parents' perspectives for sportive activities are positive can show that they have the awareness about the expectation from the activities. Families can make a positive inference from children's successes obtained from these activities. Accordingly, they can support their children to participate in these activities. There is a positive relationship between family support and the pleasure that children get from the sport [20]. In society, child's success and failure are attributed completely to families. When the children get success in sports, people believe that it is the family factor that stands behind this success. For instance, when Tiger Woods, a famous golf player, started showing success in tournaments, everyone described Earl Woods, Tiger's father, as a good and smart parent and considered him as fundamental support behind Tiger's success. The same situation is seen in the example of Richard William, father of Serena and Venus Williams [21]. Studies that examine the attitudes and opinions of parents for extracurricular sportive activities [22,23] were encountered in literature, there were limited studies that handle their expectations from these activities [24,25]. This conducted study is important in terms of revealing the parents' expectations and it is expected that this study will provide a different perspective for researchers and implementers about extracurricular sportive activities being more qualified by evaluating the obtained results.

Research Model
In research carried out to determine the parents' expectations from the extracurricular sportive activities; interwoven single case study design, one of the qualitative research approaches [26] was benefited. Case study designs are expressed as an analysis and definition of an example, fact or social unit in a holistic way [27]. Participants: In the selection of study group was used easy accessible case sampling, one of the purposeful sampling methods that contain sample units which serve for the research [28]. This sampling provides energy and pecuniary resource by reaching the sample in a fast and easy way [29] so that detailed information on research can be collected and data quality can be high [30]. Parents of 14 students studying in different high schools in the city center of Kırıkkale in 2014-2015 academic years were included in the research.

Data Collection
Semi-structured interview form that was prepared for the interview used in the qualitative chapter of research. This form was applied on 14 parents between the dates of 05.09.2015 and 11.09.2015 in the city center of Kırıkkale in a place and time period that participants saw fit.
Semi-Structured Interview Form: Interview method was used in present study to obtain profoundly information on the subject. Interview is an instrument that provides to reveal what people think and why; what their feelings, attitudes and emotions are and which factors lead their behaviors [31]. In interview, questions are addressed to participants for a purpose and answers are received in a mutual communication process [33]. Kvale [34] tried to explain this process with a miner metaphor. Interview process can be likened to an excavation that miner carries out deeply to seek a mine. In just the same way as a miner excavates to find a valuable mine. Research tries to learn and reveal the individuals' way of thinking, perceptions, thoughts, emotions and remarks through a systematic question within the scope of results intended to be revealed [35]. The use of interview technique changes according to the aim of research object. In this study, semi-structured interview form was used to determine the parents' opinions on extracurricular sportive activities. In the semi-structured interview form that Bogdan & Biklen [32] suggest and that gives participants a chance to express freely their thoughts about a certain subject, researcher gets profoundly information through questioning that provides to obtain true data. In this interview, preprepared questions guide researcher during the interview. The reason why this interview technique was selected is that it has the flexibility of addressing new questions to participants pending the interview [36,37].
ü Specific questions for each subject, ü Fact that will be handled for each subject and specific questions for each fact, ü Specific instructions for each subject, fact and question [38]. Before preparing the semi-structured interview form, studies about the subject [39] and studies in which the interview technique used in qualitative research was used were examined. The questions and questions that serve for the aim of research were prepared. These questions were presented to evaluations of 5 (five) experts. This experts are 3 from the field of physical education in terms of content validity, 1 from the field of Turkish education in terms of legibility and understandability and 1 from the field of assessment and evaluation. Questions in the interview form prepared in the direction of experts' suggestions and criticisms were tested by interviewing with two parents that have similar characteristics with participants. Evaluating the reactions of participants to questions after this pilot practice, corrections were made in the direction of feedbacks obtained from them and final form was given. It was determined as a result of pilot practice that duration of interviews changed between 5-16 minutes. Questions included in the interview form were prepared based on literature; it was aimed to PEDAGOGICS PSYCHOLOGY examine deeply the subject and to prepare questions that aim to examine diffusively the reasons lying behind the behaviors. Parents were asked their opinions that contain their perspectives for extracurricular sportive activities and their expectations from these activities. The interview form consists of two chapters. In the first chapter, there are questions about interview date, the time of interview, nickname in the interview, person's name of interviewer and the chapter in which the aim of interview is introduced to participant. In the second chapter, questions about research were presented. Questions included in the interview form were given below: ü First of all, what is your general opinion about the extracurricular sportive activities? ü What are your expectations from the extracurricular sportive activities? Data Analysis Before starting to analyze, interview records obtained by researcher from participants were transferred into text. In this process, listening were carried out repeatedly to prevent data loss. In case confusion can occur during and after the analyses, participant interview forms were enumerated from K1 to K14. Every participant was given nicknames. The aim here is to provide evidence for validity by supporting the themes revealed in the findings chapter with participant opinions. In the data analysis, content analysis that requires interpreting the similar data by gathering them as part of concepts and themes and arranging them in a way that readers can understand [40] was used. In the process of analysis, the below steps were followed; ü The obtained data were read by the researcher by reviewing it over and over, and code list was created by writing codes. Because in the qualitative analysis, codification is the first and fundamental process for the analysis to find out the data contents [41]. By evaluating the data obtained as a result of interview, codifications were conducted as part of research problem. In the analysis; words, sentences and paragraphs used for the determination of the participants' statements were coded by conceptualizing them [42]. ü Afterwards, codes were categorized by gathering them according to their common traits. The subcategories under these categories and the codes representing these categories were interpreted by getting explained in relevant to each other, and the results were received [43]. ü Literature and relevant studies were benefited for the interpretation of the obtained findings.
In addition, the obtained data were tabulated and findings were interpreted by including the participant opinions. Accordingly, it was tried to provide the validity of the obtained data.

Validity and Reliability
Validity can be provided with an impartial observation as far as possible and a natural state of the research subject. Process steps followed concerning the validity and reliability were indicated in Table 1.
Data were analyzed separately by another expert apart from the researcher to determine whether or not the conceptual categories obtained. As a result of data analysis aimed at research reliability represent the obtained themes and the obtained codes. The categories that codes represent were compared. Both researchers discussed the dissenting points and reached agreement. The formula of Miles & Huberman [50] [Agreement/ (Agreement + Dissent) x 100] was calculated to provide the data reliability. Agreement among experts was calculated as 96% for the reliability of study results.
Research Environment Appointments were gotten from the participants to receive their opinions on the researcher and interview time and place were determined. The quality of place where the interview is carried out is significant in terms of the quality of information that researcher will obtain. Therefore, it was paid attention to prefer places where the factors such as sounds, noises etc. that can disable the communication between the researcher and participant can be minimized. Moreover, requests of the participants who are the target resources were considered for the selection of place so that they can feel comforted and express themselves well. The recordings of the participants' opinions on the interview were given in Table 2.
In Table 2; information on the date, time and place of the interview carried out with participants were given. Interviews with participants were done after getting an appointment. Interviews were carried out with participants one to one between the dates of 05.09.2015 and 11.09.2015. Importance was given to prefer places which participants considered as appropriate.

Results
Findings about parents' expectations from the extracurricular sportive activities were indicated in Figures. It can be said that each of these expectations has the aim of children spending the post-school time in a quality way. It appears that the frequencies of parents' expectations from extracurricular sportive activities are respectively "being a healthy individual (n=11)", "Keeping away from the harmful habits (n=8)", "socializing (n=7)" and "keeping away from the bad circle of friends (n=5)". Two categories with the lowest frequency are "providing skill development (n=3)". Opinions towards parents' expectation with the highest frequency were given below.
It was seen that parents expected from these activities to make their children physically and psychologically good and to provide children to have a high sense of selfconfidence.
The category of "being a healthy individual" has the highest frequency in terms of participants' expectations from extracurricular sportive activities. This category contains the sub-categories of "feeling psychologically relieved" and "having a good physical development". Parents generally stated the necessity of these activities to be functional in terms of children being psychologically healthy individuals. Ayse, one of the participants, specified that her expectation from these activities is her child feeling psychologically relieved: "… I think that sport will be effective in terms of child resting and gathering thoughts back with other things by taking up sports." Kubra's expectation from these activities is similar, as well: "It is a thing getting rid of thoughts in her mind through sport… Perhaps she can be physically tired but she can mentally relax, I think she will have a different mood". It was determined that participants have expectations from these activities that contain opinions on children regenerating mentally, being psychologically steady like having a good mood. The other sub-category of the category of being a healthy individual is "having a good   has the second highest frequency in terms of participants' expectations from extracurricular sportive activities. This category shows that there are participants' expectations in terms of preventing children to spend a long time with social media, television and smartphone. Stating particularly that adolescents spend a long time with social media or smartphone, participants specified the importance of extracurricular sportive activities in terms of spending the post-school time in a more qualified way. Ayse, one of the participants, stated that her child is always at the computer or phone when he is at home and she is troubled with this situation.
"We take our son's phone from him when he is at home. He is occupied either with computer or phone.    "…He spends post-school time at the computer or being occupied with smartphone at home. Since he gets bored and especially he is not active in any sportive activities in this period called the puberty, he fights with his siblings. We cannot get in contact with him, cannot talk with him. This is because of computer, but not that much (Neriman)." One of the another category of expectation of parents is keeping away from bad circle of friends f(5). As shown in Figure 4, this category consists of two sub-categories that are preventing smoke and drug and alcohol use. The opinions related to category are given below.
" Participants' expectations are their children to prevent from bad habits such as smartphone addiction or computer which has become the illness of our age for adolescents. Most of parents do not have any idea how to put this habit away. At this point, it can be said that parents have the expectations that spending post-school time by participating in these activities can enable children to spend time usefully. Other subjects parents worry about are drug abuse, smoke and alcohol which reveal because of bad circle of friends of children. Particularly, nowadays providing the addictive drug is easy and adolescents spend more time with friends than family; therefore, it gets easy to gain these bad habits. Participation in the extracurricular sportive activities makes it easier for parents to know the children's circle of friends and the place they are in and to control their children. The last category related to expectation of parents about extracurricular sport activity is providing skill development f (2).
As shown in Figure 5, this category consists of two sub-categories that are exploring children ability and being able to do the movements peculiar to sport branch. The opinions related to category are given below.
"I want from my child to identify her own skills and to feel the sense that I can do something (Canan)".
"Since I could not swim, I was always at the coast. I directed my child to the swimming team of school so that he can develop his swimming skill (Fatih)".

Discussion
In this research, documents were examined which were obtained as a result of interviews carried out to identify the expectations of parents from extracurricular sportive activities. Parents expressed their expectations as "being a healthy individual", "keeping away from the harmful habits", "socializing", "keeping away from the bad circle of friends", "providing skill development" and "providing being an intellectual individual". The category of being a healthy individual contains the contribution psychologically on children's development. In the study of [51], it was revealed that these activities contribute psychologically to children's development. Similar result was obtained in the study of [15] entitled extracurricular activities and adolescent development. It was concluded that individuals' skills and social relationships, school success, educational and professional level, welfare level, health and positive social behaviors developed with the participation in activities. Extracurricular sportive activities support the physical development of adolescents. Parents asserted two concepts under health category which are psychological and physical development concepts.
Parents drew attention to importance of extracurricular sportive activities in terms of children displaying physically healthy development. It was determined that parents have expectations that sport enables their children to control their weight and provides adolescence's effect on human physiology to be balanced, children can get tall especially with sportive branches. It was seen that particularly some parents have a high awareness level towards the sport's effects on children. They direct their children to a sport branch by carrying out researches on which sportive activity could contribute more to physical development of children. Mahoney, Larson & Eccles [52] emphasized that these activities contribute to physical development of children and adolescents. O'Brien & Rollefson [16] revealed that extracurricular activities give students an opportunity to learn acquisitions such as rivalry, physical power and strength.
Remarking that with the development of technology, addiction level of children to smartphone and computer has increased, parents stated that children could be more active thanks to the participation in these activities. For instance, Bartko & Eccles [53] revealed that unstructured activities, which are defined as an inactive life style such as spending time at computer or watching television, could generally cause problems for children and adolescents. In the study of Gurkan & Ballı [54] "Parents' expectations and opinions about children's participation in leisure time activities and sports", it was figured out that children preferred mostly passive activities such as watching television, listening music, spending time at computer and internet. In the same study, parents stated that they wanted children to participate in active sportive activities instead of passive activities. In another study on high school students in US; Larson et al. [55] revealed that students spend limited time with parents and they are occupied more in passive activities such as watching television, surfing on internet, playing video games during the school time.
Parents remarked that children can stay away from bad circle of friends and harmful habits thanks to these activities. There are studies that support these findings [6,24]. In the study of Franklin [19], it was determined that since these activities are structured in a planned and programmed way and parents know what their children do and how they spend the time after school, they have low anxiety levels. Particularly, working parents have limited chance to control their children's extracurricular time [18], they specified that these activities enable their children to spend the post-school time in a planned and programmed way.
Structured extracurricular activities create conditions for children to acquire different social skills which couldn't be developed with normal studies in school [56]. It was figured out that parents' expectations from these activities are in this direction. Parents emphasized that activities have a great contribution on children to make new friendships, to gain leadership skills and to collaborate with other individuals. There are studies which reveal that structured activities that affect directly the development of adolescents play a role in changing their nature of social development [57]. Study of Darling [58] indicated that these activities enable adolescents to socialize with their peers, to set a target and achieve it, to compete fairly and to resolve the problems peacefully. Study of Darling et al. [4] indicated that activities provide adolescents to perform the common interests together and accordingly enable them to create new relationships with their peers and to gain social capital.
Another expectation of parents from extracurricular sportive activities is to contribute to skill developments of their children. Study of Akgul et al. [59] supports present study. In study, it was concluded that thanks to activities children and adolescents can spend the leisure time in a good way, they use their energies positively and they can prevent themselves from bad habits and develop their knowledge, skills and abilities by getting rid of stress. That is because lessons that are lectured in school might not contain everything for children's education. These can be provided by extracurricular activities in the direction of the aim of education. Through extracurricular activities, insufficiency of typical education programs is fulfilled; students' physical and spiritual necessities are taught by experiencing and conducting it on vital problems; skill developments of students are provided [60].

Conclusion
Considered the findings related to subject, it appeared that the biggest anxieties of parents about children are that children have bad circle of friends and gain bad and harmful habits. It was revealed that they have expectations from extracurricular sportive activities in terms of dealing with these harmful and bad habits. The facts that these activities are performed under adult (trainer, family etc.) and structured in a planned and programmed way prompt parents to direct their children to these activities for post-school time. In this direction, expectations from these activities can be summarized so: supporting healthy developments of children, keeping away from harmful habits, giving opportunity to socialize, keeping away from bad circle of friends, supporting skill development and giving a chance to be an intellectual individual. Considered these results, it can be said that effect of extracurricular sportive activities on adolescent development is incontrovertibly significant. Therefore, it should be given importance to perform extracurricular sportive activities, giving a chance for parents to follow closely these activities.