“All I have to do is pass”: A discursive analysis of student athletes' talk about prioritising sport to the detriment of education to overcome stressors encountered in combining elite sport and tertiary education

ObjectivesIncreasingly, athletes are expected to undertake tertiary education contemporaneously with their sporting careers. However, to do so may prove difficult and stressful. Exploration of the stressors encountered by student-athletes in combining the two pursuits is limited. There is also limited research examining whether combining the two pursuits impacts upon sporting or educational success.Design and methodA discursive psychological approach was employed, examining twenty interviews conducted with Australian athletes enrolled in tertiary education, exploring how athletes integrated sport and education.ResultsWithin the interviews, athletes constructed their primary academic goal as to ‘just pass’. Athletes repeatedly presented themselves as sacrificing educational success to integrate the two pursuits. Moreover, athletes constructed accounts of themselves as prioritising sport, but as passive in decision-making around priorities. In doing so, athletes produced accounts that removed their own agency for their sacrificed academic success. The interviewees also constructed time as a barrier to the successful integration of sport and education. In the dataset time was constructed either as fixed, limited and externally controlled, or as flexible and controllable.ConclusionsThese alternate constructions allowed athletes to remove agency for poor educational outcomes, or conversely, enabled them to present themselves as successfully able to integrate sport and education. Thus, differing constructions of time were used to achieve different rhetorical ends. Implications and interventions for supporting student athletes successfully to combine sport and education are discussed.     

篮球运动员对假动作任务的知觉预期优势

进行了三项实验以探讨篮球运动员知觉预期优势的原因,实验一通过对假动作任务和无假动作任务的预期正确率和自信心程度分析发现所有被试在假动作任务中的正确率和自信心程度均小于无假动作任务,假动作任务中运动员在这两个指标上均优于新手且趋势更满足二次曲线。实验二通过多重任务方法比较了点刺激和运动情景刺激条件下有无假动作任务的预期判断,发现假动作任务中运动员在反应时和正确率方面都有显著优势。实验三通过ERP分析发现运动员诱发了较大的N200和P200。据此认为,运动员的知觉预期优势可能主要存在假动作任务中,运动员在预期中采取启发式策略、并且更早编码、注意范围集中且稳定。