Student-athlete or athlete-student?: an investigation of athletic and vocational identity of division I male and female collegiate basketball players

This study focused on student-athletes' transition out of collegiate athletics and the shift in identity from the athletic role into more of a work role. The study sought to determine if a highly salient athletic identity interfered with the development of other life roles and personal growth initiative. Participants included 83 men and 99 women collegiate basketball players from Division I programs who completed questionnaires assessing vocational identity, athletic identity, and personal growth initiative prior to the beginning of the basketball season.

Based on current theory and past research, hypotheses were tested that looked at the relationships of vocational and athletic identity with academic classification, gender, playing status, power rating, and personal growth initiative. Analyses were done separately by gender.

Results indicated that (1) increased academic classification (from freshman to senior), was positively correlated to higher levels of vocational identity for women; (2) having a higher playing status (i.e., starter) was positively correlated with higher levels of vocational identity for women; (3) having a higher playing status was positively correlated with higher levels of athletic identity for both men and women; (4) playing for a school with a higher power ratings was positively related to higher levels of athletic identity for men and minimally for women; (5) men had higher levels of athletic identity than women; and (6) for women, having higher levels of either vocational or athletic identity was positively related to having higher levels of personal growth initiative. Implications for interventions with student-athletes and future research directions were also discussed.