Effects of an after school judo program on children's self esteem

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine changes in children's self esteem as a result of participating in an after school judo program. The research hypothesis was that an increase in children's self esteem would occur after participating in an after-school judo program. Participants for this study were elementary aged school children enrolled in an elementary school within the Warren Township School District in Indianapolis, IN. There were two groups randomly selected for this study: a judo group and a control group (judo group, n=19 control group, n=26). The judo group participated in a 12-week program of instruction in judo, conducted after regular school hours. To measure self esteem, a questionnaire which contained the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale, was administered to the study groups. Questionnaires were administered to both groups prior to the commencement of the program, and after completion of the program. The findings of this study were that the self esteem of children that participated in the judo instruction showed a decline (p = 0.10). This was in conflict with the expected outcome. The findings suggest that further investigation is needed in order to control for variables that might have had an unintended influence on the outcome, as well as expanding data collection to better explain the results. However, the findings are consistent with other studies of self esteem which show that self esteem is difficult to measure and is weakly related to external variables.