The Impact of Athletic Performance on Academic Achievement of Division I Student-Athletes

Abstract

When considering Division I student-athletes, their athletic abilities are the first thing that comes to mind, when it comes to their academic responsibilities, things are often overlooked. Today the NCAA oversees a four billion dollar athletics industry in the United States made up of over 75,000 student-athletes participating in 36 different sports at the Division I level. Considering a small percentage of these student-athletes go on to compete at the professional level, the ultimate goal of attending college is to graduate and move onto a career rather than participate in athletics. With that being said, between the large time commitments and the overall importance placed on athletes, academic eligibility and academic performance can be extremely stressful for both the athlete and coach. In order to determine ways to better support Division I student athletes, their time commitment, academic support system success and impact on grade point average were all evaluated. The overall purpose of this synthesis project was to review the literature on the relationship of athletic participation on academic achievement of Division I intercollegiate athletes. Results indicated the average Division I student-athlete can have a time commitment of nearly 40 hours per week between academics, athletics, leisure activities, socialization and other maintenance activities. Along with that, results noted that while academic support systems have improved greatly, there is room for improvement and until the academic gap is closed they will not be adequate. Finally, there was a variance in results on the impact on grade point average, so it was concluded more research is needed to draw conclusions.