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Date Submitted: 04/01/2013 05:40 PM
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AND STUDENT PERSISTENCE
Student athletes seem to experience heightened academic adjustment concerns. For example, participation in major intercollegiate sports previously was found to have a negative effect on academic performance (Astin, 1993) and on other cognitive outcomes including reading comprehension and math skills in football and basketball players (Pascarella et al., 1999). Among the findings in the extant literature, psychosocial, or noncognitive, variables may play an important role in student athletes' academic performance. The term noncognitive refers to "variables relating to adjustment, motivation, and perceptions, rather than the traditional verbal and quantitative (often called cognitive) areas typically measured by standardized tests" (Sedlacek, 2004, p. 36). For example, in one study (Simons, Van Rheenen, & Covington, 1999), college student athletes who were highly motivated to succeed academically (the success-oriented overachievers) displayed higher self-worth, exhibited better metacognitive study strategies, demonstrated higher academic performance, and had fewer reading and study problems than did the student athletes who were less highly motivated (the failure avoiders and the failure acceptors). Student athletes who were more involved with their studies and worked with faculty members were found to have better academic performance than those who were less involved (Schroeder, 2000; Watt & Moore, 2001).
Furthermore, those student athletes with greater access to social support from teammates, family, and institutional sources seem more likely to experience academic success (Petrie & Stoever, 1997; Young & Sowa, 1992). Unfortunately, although access to institutional support seems to mitigate some difficulties, student athletes tend to underuse college and university counseling services (Birky, 2007; Watson, 2005). Birky found that social pressure from student-athlete peers and coaches, emphasizing...