Student Athlete Self-Efficacy

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

In most educational institution, the population of the students is divided into two categories; the student athletes and the non-athletes. Student athletes are a population who may experience growth and development difficulties with both cognitive and psychosocial tasks. More specifically, student-athletes need assistance in overcoming challenges in the development of athletic, academic, and personal skills. In addition, student athletes face many challenges both in their academic studies and their sports involvement that is not experienced by the ordinary college students. As colleges and universities aim to develop the over-all academic achievement of their students, keeping a close eye on the educational experiences

These components help individuals in determining if they believe they have the capability to accomplish specific tasks. Positive and negative experiences can influence the ability of an individual to perform a given task. If one has performed well at a task previously, he or she is more likely to feel competent and perform well at a similarly associated task. For example, if one performed well in a training workshop they are more likely to feel confident and have high self-efficacy in another training workshop. The individual’s self-efficacy will be high in that given area, and since he or she has a high self-efficacy, he or she is more likely to try harder and complete the task with much better results. The opposite is also true. If an individual experiences a failure, self-efficacy is likely to be reduced. However, if these failures are later overcome by conviction, it can serve to increase self-motivated persistence when the situation is viewed as an achievable challenge. Individuals are able to develop high or low self-efficacy vicariously through other people’s performances. A person can watch someone else perform and then assess their competence with the other’s competence. If a person sees someone similar to them succeed, it can

Whether it is an intramural, recreational sport or intercollegiate competition, colleges and universities are known to have athletes attending the school to receive education. Student Athletes are the population of the school wherein they are part of the school’s varsity team and play in the intercollegiate competitions (Watt& Moore, 2003). They fulfill both the responsibilities of a student such as attending classes, completing classroom requirements, and taking examinations as well as an athlete such as attending training, acquiring injuries and facing public scrutiny (Carodine et al., 2003). Due to this common and unavoidable situation, the population of the student athletes frequently faces problems with their academic studies that also affect their academic performance (Carodine, Almond &Gratto, 2003; Watt & Moore, 2003). In addition the student athlete population also faces stereotyping from their peers and faculty teachers. The stereotyping of student athletes also affects the academics because the belief that if a student is also an athlete they are automatically assumed to be “lazy and dumb” (Stone, Harrison &Mottley, 2012). However according to Fletcher et al. (2003), even if this stereotype fits some athletes, many of them take their academic studies very