Book Description

The purposes of this study were to examine the effectiveness of tutoring from the Matador Achievement Center (MAC) for student athletes and explore student athletes' identity with athletics and academics. As part of an exploratory sequential mixed-method design, study 1 was completed by using secondary data analysis from the MAC, and study 2 was a case study through interviews. The data from each of these studies are not able to be connected directly, but they provided complementary information to inform future research and program development. For study 1, I hypothesized that student athletes who participated in the MAC would experience positive GPA changes over time and student athletes' GPA would be lower during semesters when their sport(s) was (were) in-season than compared to semesters out-of-season. The archival data included 567 student athletes' records from fall 2013 and spring 2015. The case study had three first year student athletes and they were interviewed about their athletic and academic history. Study 1 indicated that tutoring alone was not enough to increase student athletes' GPA overtime. Study 2 examined how student athletes balanced their roles with athletics and academics as related to identity and agency using a "figured worlds" approach (Holland Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain, 1998). The major findings were that student athletes were not as identified with or committed to their academic development as their athletic development. The student athletes tended to be more motivated with athletics than academics, and they were motivated to play in professional athletics. Lastly, student athletes reported that they experienced disempowerment related to their athletic identity in the classroom when following procedures on the first day of classes. The MAC and faculty liaisons should collaborate to find ways to ensure that the policy serves the necessary functions without putting students in a position of potentially receiving bias. Student athletes seemed that they did not have anything equivalent in academics to a support system they get from athletics.