The Comparison of Motor Development and Social Development of the Female Athlete and Non-Athlete School Students Involved in Individual and Team Sports

This research aims to compare the motor development and social development of the female athlete and non-athlete students of the third grade of junior high schools of the city of Eslamshahr. For this purpose, 170 female non-athlete students were selected by simple random sampling technique, from whom 85 students were involved in individual sports (50 in taekwondo, and 35 in gymnastics), and 85 students in team sports (47 basketball players, and 38 volleyball players). The tested members filled the Ellis Weitzman’s social development questionnaire, and they were tested by Bruininks-Oseretsky shortened test of motor proficiency. As the data were not distributed normally, the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test and Chi-Squared test were applied. The results, at the alpha level of 0.05, show that there is a significant difference between the social development of the female athlete students and that of the female non-athlete ones in favor of the athletes. However, there is no difference in the social development of the female athlete of individual sports and that of those involved in team sports. Moreover, there was a significant difference between the motor development of female athlete students and that of the non-athletes in favor of the athlete group. In addition, there was a significant difference between the motor development of the female athlete students who involved in individual sports and that of those ones involved in team sports in favor of the athletes of team sports. Finally, there was a significant difference between the gross and fine motor skills of the female athletes and those of the non-athletes in favor of the athlete group.