Beyond the Game: Exploring the Interplay of Career Thoughts, Career Adaptability, and Athletic Identity in Shaping Postgraduation Paths for Student Athletes

Abstract

College student athletes represent a unique subpopulation of university students. Balancing expectations for academics, practice, and performance leaves little time to engage in thoughtful career exploration and postgraduate planning. In the present study, 92 college student athletes (CSAs) completed surveys on career constructs known to impact career decision making among the general college population, i.e., career thoughts and career adaptability, and a measure of athletic identity to determine how these constructs interact and affect postgraduate plans. Pearson product-moment correlations, hierarchical regressions, and a MANOVA with follow-up ANOVA revealed mixed results. Subscales captured more variance than did total scale scores. Postgraduation plans differ significantly in terms of career thoughts and athletic identity but not career adaptability. CSAs uncertain about their postgraduation plans had more career thoughts than those who wanted careers outside of sports. Those who wanted to be professional athletes or to have a sports-related career had higher levels of athletic identity than those who were planning a nonsports career. A discussion of the results and future directions for theory, research, and practice are provided.