Spanish Pre-Olympic Athletes’ Motivations and Barriers to Pursuing Dual Career as a Function of Sociodemographic, Sport and Academic Variables

Abstract

The dual career allows elite athletes to attain their maximum competitive and academic performance, but the COVID-19 pandemic hindered their development and changed their perception of the importance given to the sporting and educational environment. For this reason, the aim of the present study was to determine the differences in the motivations and perceived barriers, the importance given to academic qualifications, and the perception of the dual career from a multifactorial perspective, of elite athletes according to sex, type of sport practiced, job performance, time of sports career, type of athlete, and type of scholarship received. A total of 100 student-athletes participated in the research study by completing the “Perceptions of dual career student-athletes” questionnaire. The results showed that athletes from individual modalities (p = 0.012) and those who did not receive any scholarships described more barriers (p < 0.001). In addition, women studied more because they enjoyed it (p = 0.007); athletes from individual modalities studied to work later (p = 0.008); athletes who do not work perceived a greater influence between study and sports performance (p = 0.029); at the beginning and at the best stage of their sports career, a greater influence of academics on performance was perceived (p = 0.016); and athletes who considered themselves professionals, and athletes who did not receive any scholarships (p = 0.025), reported that the conciliation between sports and academic life was difficult (p = 0.034). The results obtained point to the importance of dual career scholarships for student-athletes, as well as the need for the programs implemented for these athletes to consider sex, sport modality or type of scholarship granted.

Exploring dual career quality implementation at European higher education institutions: Insights from university experts

“…Previous studies investigated the subjective perception of student-athletes regarding their dual career barriers and services at university level [ 16 , 39 ]. Undoubtedly, being the final recipients of policies and services for dual career, the student-athletes’ point of view is crucial for recognizing problems and foreseeing solutions for building a dual career-supporting environment.…”

Moderating role of Negative Career Thoughts in the Relationship between Motivation and Burnout in Portuguese Dual Career Athletes

“…Recent studies have found that student-athletes, with a dual career, report symptoms of sports and / or academic burnout early in secondary school (e.g., Felix-Mena et al, [6]; Gustafsson et al, [10]; Sorkkila et al, [7]). Furthermore, burnout appears to be associated with school and sports dropout, with students with burnout being four times more likely to drop out of school than students without burnout [11,9,7].…”

“…These results may be linked to the specific character of each sport. Since, for example, in individual sport, the athlete is responsible for the necessary strategy to guarantee its own success, and in the team, sports athletes must work together for success [11]. With regard to NCT, it was found that women, compared to boys, tend to have more pessimistic thoughts about their careers, which can be explained by the perception of lower expectations of self-efficacy in sports where instrumentality and leadership behaviors are dominant, threats to a certain image of femininity and perceived anticipation of family-work conflict [23,21].…”

“…As burnout can be influenced by many contextual factors (e.g., educational background and stress) future studies are encouraged to verify the moderation model with relevant demographic information controlled. Future research should explore specific characteristics of the sport that affect athletes' decision to pursue a dual career, as well as other variables, referred to in the literature as being closely associated with career choices, namely the social, cultural and economic background of students as well as some intrinsic variables, such as perceived self-efficacy (e.g., Mateo-Orcajada et al, [11]).…”

Carrera dual: ¿Estudiante deportista o deportista estudiante?

“…la actualidad, buscar la manera de converger entre la práctica deportiva de rendimiento y los estudios son un reto que el mundo del deporte ha comenzado a darle mayor importancia, a la vista del futuro profesional del deportista (Abelkalns et al, 2021;Mateo-Orcajada et al, 2022).…”