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Problem Statement: Recent achievements have revealed a relationship between participation in extracurricular school sports and future career, although the reason for the existence of such relationship is not well understood. To determine the relationship between sports and career, this study focuses on the career forming "basic general ability," characteristic of career education in Japan. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to clarify the difference between practitioners and non-practitioners of school-based extracurricular sports activities in terms of basic general ability. Approach: Participants were 295 students and 26 teachers of two public junior high schools and two public high schools. The basic general ability of each student was assessed by plural teachers who knew the students well. Then, the average of each teacher's assessment was calculated. Results: The results of covariance analysis (covariates were sex, school type and school grade) showed that practitioners' basic general ability [p < .001] and all four subscale abilities (human network building and community forming [p < .001], self-understanding and self-control [p = .001], task handling [p = .033], and career planning [p = .002]) were significantly higher than those of non-practitioners. Conclusions: Basic general ability would be a factor associated with the future career of practitioners of school-based extracurricular sports activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem Statement: There is a notable burden placed on teachers to coach and manage school-based extracurricular sports activities. Outside of decreasing the time teachers are engaged in these activities, increasing teacher expertise may reduce this burden. However, the relationship between these burdens and teacher expertise is not well understood. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to clarify differences in these burdens according to teacher expertise. Approach: The study participants were 361 teachers who worked in public junior high or high schools and supervised school-based extracurricular sports activities. These participants completed cross-sectional self-administered questionnaire surveys. The main survey questions involved expertise and three types of burdens (i.e., temporal, psychological, and economic). Then, an analysis of variance, Kruskal-Wallis test, and multiple comparison were performed. Results: The results revealed that physical education teachers and non-physical education/expert teachers spent significantly more time and money on school-based extracurricular sports activities than did non-physical education/non-expert teachers. Conversely, physical education teachers and non-physical education/expert teachers experienced significantly less of a psychological burden than did non-physical education/non-expert teachers. In addition, physical education teachers spent more time and money, and experienced less of a psychological burden, than did nonphysical education/expert teachers. Conclusions: The study considered teacher expertise in school-based extracurricular sports activities to affect the level of burden teachers experienced. Placing teachers with appropriate expertise into school-based extracurricular sports activities, providing teacher training to improve expertise, and utilizing external coaches would contribute to the reduction of these burdens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem Statement: Many youths participate in school-based extracurricular sports activities (SBECSA). These SBECSAs contribute to positive youth development. However, SBECSAs sometimes require the outsourcing of human resources. The major reason is difficulty to manage SBECSAs by employing teachers as the primary coaching resources. Using external coaches is an effective solution for reducing the workload on teachers, and it can contribute to improving teachers' and students' knowledge and skills. Because teacher involvement also appears to provide benefits for students, cooperative coaching between external coaches and teachers is essential. However, the lack of evidence regarding the benefits that cooperative coaching offers students may result in inadequate cooperation. Approach: In all, 23 students who participated in SBECSAs were recruited from three junior high schools and three high schools that employed external coaches. An open-ended, semi-structured interview was conducted with each student. The KJ method was used for qualitative analysis of the responses. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine how external coaches and teachers impact students' experiences in SBECSAs, and how external coaches and teachers differ and/or have similar impacts. Results: In terms of benefits from external coaches, six categories and 31 subcategories were identified. The major categories included the following: expert coaching; support for SBECSA teacher; general coaching; human network; improved SBECSA atmosphere; and equipment supply. Benefits from teachers comprised six categories and 22 subcategories. The major categories identified were as follows: general coaching; management and office work; participation in SBECSA; human network; connection with school life; and improved SBECSA atmosphere. Conclusions: Students perceived overlapping and specific benefits from both groups, which indicated that cooperative coaching would be more desirable to students than having only external coaches or teacher instruct their SBECSAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the rapidly developing use of the Internet in society, eHealth literacy-having the skills to utilize health information on the Internet-has become an important prerequisite for promoting healthy behavior. However, little is known about whether eHealth literacy is associated with health behavior in a representative sample of adult Internet users.Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the association between eHealth literacy and general health behavior (cigarette smoking, physical exercise, alcohol consumption, sleeping hours, eating breakfast, eating between meals, and balanced nutrition) among adult Internet users in Japan.Methods: The participants were recruited among registrants of a Japanese Internet research service company and asked to answer a cross-sectional Internet-based survey in 2012. The potential respondents (N=10,178) were randomly and blindly invited via email from the registrants in accordance with the set sample size and other attributes. eHealth literacy was assessed using the Japanese version of the eHealth Literacy Scale. The self-reported health behaviors investigated included never smoking cigarettes, physical exercise, alcohol consumption, sleeping hours, eating breakfast, not eating between meals, and balanced nutrition. We obtained details of sociodemographic attributes (sex, age, marital status, educational attainment, and household income level) and frequency of conducting Internet searches. To determine the association of each health behavior with eHealth literacy, we performed a logistic regression analysis; we adjusted for sociodemographic attributes and frequency of Internet searching as well as for other health behaviors that were statistically significant with respect to eHealth literacy in univariate analyses.Results: We analyzed the data of 2115 adults (response rate: 24.04%, 2142/10,178; male: 49.74%, 1052/2115; age: mean 39.7, SD 10.9 years) who responded to the survey. Logistic regression analysis showed that individuals with high eHealth literacy were significantly more likely to exhibit the good health behaviors of physical exercise (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.377, 95% CI 1.131-1.678) and eating a balanced diet (AOR 1.572, 95% CI 1.274-1.940) than individuals with low eHealth literacy.Conclusions: We found that some health behaviors, including exercise and balanced nutrition, were independently associated with eHealth literacy among Japanese adult Internet users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]