Pinned by Their Own Goals: An Exploratory Investigation into Why Kids Drop out of Wrestling

Previous research concludes that athletes drop out of sport because of conflicts of interest, but these findings cannot clarify whether dropouts find other activities more appealing or turn to new activities because sport fails to meet their achievement needs. This investigation assessed dropout motives by testing explanations derived from Nicholls' (1984) motivational model and comparing them with traditional dropout questionnaire responses. Wrestling coaches, participants, participants' parents, dropouts, and dropouts' parents completed a 23-item dropout inventory; and participants and dropouts responded to questionnaire items testing Nicholls' task choice predictions. Dropout inventory responses confirmed previous conflict-of-interest findings. In data testing Nicholls' model, participants demonstrated significantly higher perceived ability, better won-loss records, more functional attributions, and more positive expectancies, and valued wrestling success more than dropouts did. These findings supported predictions that wrestlers change activities when continued participation threatens their perceived ability. Disagreement between the conclusions concerning why young athletes drop out of wrestling drawn from the conflict-of-interest explanation and from Nicholls' perceived ability model are discussed, and suggestions for reducing dropout rates are offered.