The purpose of the following masters thesis was to identify dropout reasons for three young ice hockey players, who attended organized sports classes at elementary school level from the ages 13 to 16 years. Sports classes has been shown to provide an effective talent development environment for young athletes. In that respect it is relevant to investigate if some dropout reasons are unique for sports students.
Data was collected using a retrospective narrative interview ranging from 66 to 81 minutes in duration. Data was transscribed verbatim and analyzed using a thematic analysis to identify themes that could be associated with dropout reasons based on the existing research in the domain.
The results showed that seven main themes associated with psychological factors, family, the sports class, the sporting environment, coach relationship, developmental and performance factors, and the social network was initially associated with dropout reason.
The discussion of the results indicated that transitions, lack of mental training, pressure from family, early selection, transportation issues, a negative coach relationship, early specialization, lack of physqiue, lack of team role, lack of playing time, and other social interests could be reasons leading to dropout.
Furthermore the current masters thesis identified a number of issues related to attending sports classes. These were a potentially detrimental increase in training hours, little time off from school or sport, closely linked athletic and academic domain in regards to conflicts being transferable, and a stigma towards ice hockey players in sports classes. It was discussed that these issues could be prerequisites for athletic dropout, but that the respondents of the current study were not affected by these as they dropped out after making the transition to high school.
Further research is required to obtain a greater comprehension of the issues related to sports classes.