The Effect of Message Framing on Parents of Youth Athletes Attitudes Toward Messages Promoting Healthy Athletic Training Recommendations

<p>Each year within the United States 73% of children and adolescents participate in some form of organized sport (Aspen Institute, 2020). This participation results in a high rate of injury necessitating 2.6 million emergency room visits each year (Merkel, 2013). Over half of these injuries incurred in youth sport are deemed overuse injuries (Valovich McLeod et al., 2011), which are a leading cause in the high attrition rate seen in youth athletics today (Persson et al., 2020; Mangan, 2018). In order to decrease the prevalence of these overuse injuries, the proper education of, and adherence to, certain recommended sport behaviors is advised (DiFiori et al., 2014; Stein & Micheli, 2015). Toward this end, one source which may advocate for youth athletes to engage in these behaviors are their parents (DiFirori et al., 2014). Resultantly, (N = 331) parents of youth athletes were sampled and randomly exposed to educational messages advocating for the adoption of these recommended sport behaviors. These messages were framed according to the tenets of Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) in order to test the impact of message framing on the beliefs that parents hold toward each of these behavioral recommendations. It was hypothesized that parents exposed to a gain-frame message highlighting what their child may gain as a result of engaging in these behaviors would indicate higher levels of behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, and intent toward adhering to these behaviors than those exposed to a loss-frame message. Data indicate that parents were able to discern differences between message frames, however they do not support each of the forwarded vi hypotheses. These results provide further insight into the impact framed messages may have in this unique communicative setting as well as highlight several areas of inquiry for future analysis.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communication

Year dc:date.available

2023

Author dc:creator

• Capra, John

Contributors dc:contributor

• Keith Weber, Ed.D.
• Sara LaBelle, Ph.D.
• Mark Hopson, Ph.D.
• Jennifer Waldeck, Ph.D.

• Youth Sport
• Health Communication
• Parents
• Education
• Message Framing
• Communication

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/communication_dissertations/7

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.chapman.edu:communication_dissertations-1006