Baseball5 – Baseball Canada
Overview
Baseball Canada partnered with five of their provincial organizations to implement Baseball5, a modified version of baseball that can be played in a school gym without equipment. The program was designed to determine whether Baseball5 could enable boys and girls to participate together and if Baseball5 would be an effective introductory program to children with no baseball experience. The pilot projects took place in Montreal and Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, Richmond, British Columbia, Sherwood Park, Alberta and Prospect, Nova Scotia. The target population for the project was children between the ages of six and 14; 150 children participated in the project in total.
Outcomes
Implementation of Baseball5 in schools lead to the following results:
- A potential to increase the participants’ skill levels;
- Ability to have participation reflect the diverse population of the school;
- Development of skills that are transferable to regular baseball;
- Participation of girls and boys together in the same activities.
Quotes
“If you don’t already play baseball it kind of gives you a chance to try it out and try it in a different way than actual baseball whereas you don’t need all the equipment.”
Figure A. Participants Motivation Levels
Description of Figure A. Participants Motivation Levels
When evaluating the effectiveness of the project, researchers asked participants how motivated they were to participate in Baseball5 with 1 (at 2%) being not at all motivated and 5 (at 43%) being very motivated. The majority of participants selected either a 3 (at 17%), 4 (at 35%) or a 5 (at 43%) indicating that they were motivated to participate. This is an indicator of success for this project because it shows that the participants enjoyed being involved and are more likely to continue to want to participate either in Baseball5 or standard baseball.
Figure B. Participation Rates
Description of Figure B. Participation Rates
This chart shows the rates of male and female participation for the whole project. As indicated, 56% of the participants were male and 44% of the participants were female. This is significant because it shows that males and females are able to participate together in Baseball5, one of the expected results of the project. This makes Baseball5 more inclusive and provides equal opportunities for both males and females to participate.
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