Evaluating psychosocial outcomes of students participating in a sport-school model

Abstract

Athlete development is a continuous process, yet there has been very little focus on understanding the factors related to optimizing psychosocial outcomes in a sport-school model. during adolescence. The Academy of Student Athlete Development (ASAD) is a high performance athletic and academic sport-school model offered to student athletes in grade 9-12 in a large urban center in Southern Ontario. Research is a fundamental component of the ASAD model as it is used to guide continual improvement of the sport-school model. The current study examined the psychosocial outcomes of students participating in the ASAD sport-school model. More specifically, 31 current students (58% male) completed a survey package containing the Student Athletes' Motivation Toward Sports and Academics Questionnaire (SAMSAQ; Gaston-Gayles, 2005), Cohen Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein, 1994), Developmental Assets Profile (DAP; Search Institute, 2016) and the Training Self-Efficacy Scale (TSS) early in the school year(November) and late in the school year (May). As a whole, scores on subscales remained consistent across both time points. Further Time-1 and Time-2 comparisons trended towards gender differences, with females dropping in almost all scores while males remained relatively stable or increased scores. Correlation analyses indicated all subscales of the DAP were positively correlated to each other. Interestingly, the TSS was positively correlated with all DAP subscales (p<.05) and the PSS was negatively correlated to the DAP subscale of support (p<.05). Results will be discussed in regard to implications for the future of the sport-school model and needed next steps.