Martial arts as a mental health intervention for children? Evidence from the ECLS-K

Martial arts studios for children market their services as providing mental health outcomes such as self-esteem, self-confidence, concentration, and self-discipline. It appears that many parents enroll their children in martial arts in hopes of obtaining such outcomes. The current study used the data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten class of 1998-1999, to assess the effects of martial arts upon such outcomes as rated by classroom teachers.

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study used a multistage probability sampling design to gather a sample representative of U.S. children attending kindergarten beginning 1998. We made use of data collected in the kindergarten, 3^rd grade, and 5^th grade years. Classroom behavior was measured by a rating scale completed by teachers; participation in martial arts was assessed as part of a parent interview. The four possible combinations of participation and nonparticipation in martial arts at time 1 and time 2 for each analysis were coded into three dichotomous variables; the set of three variables constituted the measure of participation studied through regression. Multiple regression was used to estimate the association between martial arts participation and change in classroom behavior from one measurement occasion to the next. The change from kindergarten to third grade was studied as a function of martial arts participation, and the analysis was replicated studying behavior change from third grade to fifth grade. Cohen's f² effect sizes were derived from these regressions.

The martial arts variable failed to show a statistically significant effect on behavior, in either of the regression analyses; in fact, the f² effect size for martial arts was 0.000 for both analyses. The 95% confidence intervals for regression coefficients for martial arts variables have upper and lower bounds that are all close to zero. The analyses not only fail to reject the null hypothesis, but also render unlikely a population effect size that differs greatly from zero.

The data from the ECLS-K fail to support enrolling children in martial arts to improve mental health outcomes as measured by classroom teachers.