The Challenges of Educational Sport in Iran: A Review Study

Background. Educational sport is one of the best tools to fashion motivational forces with respect to sports, which leads to desirable results in sports activities. Today, the path to success in elite and professional sports passes through the attention to educational sports. Objectives. Due to the importance of educational sports, this study aimed to study the challenges of educational sports in the country by reviewing previous studies. Methods. Purposefully and based on the main objective of the research, we investigated papers in the field of educational sports and the findings on problems and limitations in the field along with highlighting keywords comprising educational sports, physical sports, school sports, educational sports challenges, limitations, and weaknesses of educational sports, health and physical education in schools from 2011 to 2020 in the country. In this study, related articles were searched by keywords and in specialized databases of Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, PubMed, SID, Magiran, Irandoc. The inclusion criteria for the selected articles were as follows: they need to be in Persian or Iranian articles, be published in prestigious domestic and foreign scientific research journals, and be in the field of educational sports and the examination of harms and weaknesses of it in the country. The results of the searches based on inclusion criteria eventually led to the identification of 26 articles field; by reviewing the articles that were outside the main purpose of this study, they were excluded from the analysis, and finally, 15 completely related and consistent articles were selected. These articles have been in the field of educational sports and their harms and limitations have been reviewed. Results. The findings showed that the weakness and problems involved in the country's educational sports can be of 7 dimensions: lack of sports facilities and equipment, educational weakness, managerial weakness, human resources weakness, lack of financial resources, contextual and individual factors. Conclusion. In developed countries such as China, Japan, the United States, etc. the main basis for the development of sports in the country, as well as the development of elite and professional sports, is physical and educational sports which will necessitate us to get them started from the beginning in schools and universities. Therefore, there should be a fundamental revision of the country's management programs in the field of educational sports in schools and universities.