Abstract
Successfully integrating elite sports with education requires motivation to commit oneself to both domains. This study examines the development of and gender differences in adolescent athletes’ task values for school and sports across the upper secondary school years. A total of 391 adolescents (aged 15–16 at the beginning of the study) were followed four times during sports upper secondary school. The participating student athletes were recruited from six sports upper secondary schools in Finland, which offer equal competitive sport opportunities for both genders. The results showed that school- and sports- task values are strongly related to each other. Males valued school less than females at the beginning of upper secondary school, and this gender difference remained, and also strengthened across years. No gender differences in sports-related task values were found. The findings indicate that females may be more committed to integrating elite sports and education than males due to their higher valuing of school.
Highlights
Narratives of athletic excellence may guide adolescents to postpone education and professional qualifications to focus on their athletic careers
The only modifications needed were in the school- and sports-related interest value models, where residual covariances were needed between the interest variables at T2 and T3
Motivation plays an important role when adolescents navigate through different educational challenges, and one especially demanding situation can be the challenge of combining elite sports and education into a dual-career pathway (Elliott et al, 2018; Sorkkila et al, 2020; Stambulova & Wylleman, 2019)
Summary
Narratives of athletic excellence may guide adolescents to postpone education and professional qualifications to focus on their athletic careers. Talented adolescent athletes may withdraw from sports to focus on preparing themselves for work life (Ryba et al, 2016a). Participation in two different domains, sports and academic education, is highly demanding, and success in one pursuit often comes at the expense of the other (Baron-Thiene & Alfermann, 2015; Cosh & Tully, 2014; Ryba et al, 2021). The EU Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes (European Commission, 2012) state that efforts should be made to guarantee the possibility of combining elite sports with academic education and/or work, that is, a dual career, for high-performance athletes. Recent research on gender differences in academic and sports domains, suggests that the challenges athletes confront in a dual career may be gendered
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