Time demands are among the primary challenges for college student-athletes. They have to attend to classes and study halls as well as athletic-related activities such as training and competition. Both academic and athletic tasks require tremendous amount of time. Thus, it is argued that academics and athletics compete for the student-athletes’ attention. This research examined the impact of academic and athletic factors on student-athletes’ time use in academics and athletics using a subset of the 2015 United States National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) GOALS data. The relationships of academic identity, school belongingness, athletic identity, and athletic expectations with academic time use and athletic time spent were tested. Differences on the variables of interest according to race, gender, and division level were also investigated. Our findings revealed that academic identity is a positive predictor of academic time use and a negative predictor of athletic time use, while athletic identity is a positive predictor of athletic time spent. We also determined a contrasting influence of athletic expectations in time commitments. Lastly, we likewise found significant effects of race, gender, and division level on the academic and athletic engagements of college athletes. Our findings have implications on the development of programs for athletic department to optimize the academic and athletic experiences of college student-athletes.
Time commitment of college athletes raises some alarm, leaving them vulnerable to career transitions and well-being consequences. How college athletes spend their academic and athletic time is not much explored. In the United States, college athletes are often classified based on their respective sport revenue production and sport type. The comparison of athletes based on sport category and sport type is sparse in the academic literature. By and large, well-being and time commitment of athletes among some others are believed to be significant factors in college sports success. This study examined the differential effects of sport category (revenue vs non-revenue) and sport type (individual vs team) on academic time use, athletic time use, subjective well-being, emotional well-being, and physical well-being of college athletes. It utilized secondary data provided by the U.S. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) granted upon agreement on data fair use. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was performed to examine the research questions. Significant differences relative to sport type and sport category were found in academic time use and athletic time use. Team sport and revenue-generating sport athletes were more athletically inclined, while individual sport and non-revenue generating sport athletes were more academically engaged.
Background: Considering that college student-athletes spend a lot of time attending to academic and athletic tasks, their well-being can be compromised. Published literature on the impact of time demands on the well-being of college student-athletes is limited. Hence, the scholarly place of the current study is warranted. Objective: This research investigated the effects of academic time use and athletic time use on the subjective, emotional, and physical well-being of college student-athletes. Methods: A subset of the NCAA GOALS data, which included 5,042 student-athletes, was utilized. Two research questions were examined: (1) to what extent does academic time use predict subjective, emotional, and physical well-being? and (2) to what extent does athletic time use predict subjective, emotional, and physical well-being? and (2) to what extent does athletic time use predict subjective, emotional, and physical well-being? A series of two-step hierarchical regression analyses were performed. Race, gender, and NCAA division level were used as control variables. Results and Discussion: Results revealed that academic time use is a significant positive predictor of subjective well-being. Moreover, athletic time use is also a significant predictor of all well-being indicators. It positively predicted subjective well-being but negatively predicted emotional and physical well-being. Conclusion: Our findings showed that both academic and athletic time utilizations are significant predictors of subjective well-being but in varying directions.
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