Relevance of university dual career support services – student–athletes’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

Rationale/Purpose

Universities provide various services supporting athletes pursuing a dual career. This paper focuses on the preconditions of being simultaneously included in elite sport and educational system, aiming to analyse the assessment of such services from the student–athletes’ perspective.

Design/Methodology/Approach

The data originate from an online survey of 1055 international student–athletes, who participated in the 2019 Winter and Summer Universiades. Based on exploratory factor analysis, support services were grouped into categories. Implementing probit models, the respondents’ perceptions were regressed with their sporting and academic background by controlling for socio-demographic factors.

Findings

The study identifies three factors of dual career support services in the context of higher education and reveals statistically significant associations between socio-demographic, academic, and sporting career-related factors and the perceived relevance of support services.

Practical Implications

To get the university context functionalised in favour of student–athletes’ dual careers, tailor-made support should particularly address differences regarding gender, university levels, and types of sport.

Research Contribution

The study enhances the understanding of dual career challenges, related to the student–athletes’ conflicting roles. It provides evidence that adequate dual career support services at the interfaces of elite sport and higher education need to be individualised according to the athletes’ needs.

KEYWORDS:

• Elite sport
• higher education
• university sport
• probit model

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the International University Sports Federation (FISU) and its Education Committee/Education and Culture Department for supporting this research. We would also like to thank the National University Sports Federations and their athletes who participated in the survey. Moreover, we are grateful to two anonymous referees for their thorough reviews and insightful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

Verena Burk is a member of FISU Executive Committee and Chair of FISU Education Committee.

Notes

1 The lower number compared to the above figures is due to the fact that only delegations with at least ten participants were surveyed at the Winter Universiade and that the number of participants at the Summer Universiade 2019 was lower due to limited accommodation capacities in Naples.

2 The expansion of the languages was a response to the fact that in the Summer Universiade, a number of participating students show insufficient English or Russian skills (e.g. from African, Latin and South American countries).

3 These items were flexibility in university entry-requirements, long-distance learning, contact person at the university, accommodation, rooms to study.

4 To encourage the most honest response behaviour, not all questions had to be answered obligatorily. This resulted, however, in cases with missing values, so that the number of cases included in the models (n = 863) was below the total number of respondents.