Merged Identity of Student-Athletes and Achievement Goals Across School and Sport

• In Event: Person-Centered Methodologies and Motivation Research: What Does It Add and Where Is It Going?

Abstract

Student-athletes face the challenge of balancing two very demanding and important roles in higher-education. One way that student-athletes might find success is by forming a merged identity of their student and athlete roles. A majority of student-athletes see themselves very strongly as both students and athletes (Paskus, 2012), which relates to better performance in school (Killeya-Jones, 2005) and a greater inclination to explore non-sport careers (Lally & Kerr, 2005). One understudied aspect of merged identity is what role it plays in how student-athletes motivate themselves across athletics and academics. Specifically, we predicted that a merged identity would predict more similar motivational tendencies in achievement goal orientation across the two domains.

Given the complex nature of exploring existing motivation across two domains, we opted to answer this question using both variable-centered and person-centered analyses. Student-athletes (N = 76) were recruited to complete an online survey of their beliefs about their roles as a student and an athlete and their achievement goals in athletics (Biddle, Wang, Chatzisarantis, & Spray, 2003) and academics (Midgley et al., 2000). To assess the degree to which students had a merged identity, they selected a pictorial representation of their two roles and explained their choice. Researchers coded the explanations for evidence of merged identity (e.g., dual investment, enhancement) and separate identities (e.g., prioritization of one role, interference). Using the student responses, researchers created a composite merged identity score.

Variable centered analyses involved a series of regressions to investigate whether athletic goals were more strongly related to academic goals for those with a higher merged identity score. However, the interaction between athletic achievement goals and merged identity in predicting academic goals were all non-significant (p’s > .10), failing to support the hypothesis.

Person-centered analyses involved cluster analyses using the three achievement goals (cf., Daniels et al., 2008; Wang, Biddle, & Elliot, 2007) of the athletic and academic domains separately. A four-cluster solution was decided on for both academics (motivated-by-any-means, moderate, mastery-oriented/low-performance, mastery-oriented/moderate-performance) and athletics (motivated-by-any-means, moderate, performance-approach-oriented, and general-approach-oriented). Two of these clusters were similar across the domains of academics and athletics. A subset of student-athletes had matching profiles across domains (n = 29). In support of the hypotheses, merged identity score predicted whether or not the participants had matching motivational profiles across the domains using logistic regression (β = .223, p = .047, odds ratio = 1.25).

This demonstrates the utility of conceptualizing and analyzing achievement goals across domains from a person-centered perspective. In treating motivational orientations as a complete whole as opposed to a series of variables, the latter analyses contribute to the understanding of the role of merged identity in student-athlete motivation above and beyond variable-centered analyses. The person-centered analyses also have the advantage of parsimony. Finally, the results demonstrate that the adaptiveness of having a merged identity for student-athletes might depend on their motivational profile, as merged identity does not predict motivation, but may influence the relation of both adaptive and maladaptive motivational orientations across two highly relevant domains.

Authors

• Michael M. Barger, Duke University

• Miray Seward, Duke University