Videogaming as stress coping in NCAA Division III student-athletes during the pandemic: An exploratory analysis

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a shutdown of college sports across all levels and a lack of leisure coping opportunities in student-athletes’ lives. When side-lined from play, student-athletes may turn to videogaming for stress coping. NCAA Division III student-athletes who played videogames completed surveys about their athletic identity and their use of videogaming as a coping method during the pandemic. Many student-athletes reported increasing their gameplay, and those who did strongly endorsed it as a deliberate coping strategy and believe in its efficacy. Exploratory analyses revealed possible gender differences in beliefs about videogaming as a coping strategy, despite equal effectiveness across genders, suggesting the activation of stereotypes about videogaming. However, athletes were not more likely to increase gameplay in a videogame of their specific college sport, suggesting that their videogaming served as a generalized coping method, rather than solely as a direct replacement for their sport.

Keywords:

• Student-athletes
• videogaming
• leisure coping
• leisure beliefs
• gender differences

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all of the student-athletes who participated in the survey, as well as the authors’ professional contacts who distributed the survey

Ethics statement

The research described in this article was conducted in accordance with the principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki and approved via expedited review by the Institutional Review Board at Cazenovia College (Approval #5040-6). Participation in the online survey was anonymous, and participants were provided with informed consent about the nature of the study before entering.

Disclosure statement

We have no known conflicts of interest to disclose.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in figshare at 10.6084/m9.figshare.23554821

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank Cazenovia College for providing funding for the incentive for student-athlete participation.