Academic Motivation of Successful High School Basketball Players
Academic Motivation of Successful High School Basketball Players
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Issue Date
2008
Authors
Betchart, Graham H.
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Abstract
This thesis explored the motivations behind academically successful male high school basketball players from an inner-city environment. Considerable research has been carried out on this subject thus far _and the purpose of this study was to find out what factors were contributing to the overall academic success of the participants despite them being in an environment with widespread underachievement. All six participants in the study were male and between the ages of 14 and 17. At the time of the interview each participant played on the high school basketball team and maintained a least a 3.5 GPA in school. The participants were each interviewed for 30 minutes and were asked questions around their academic and athletic experiences. Responses to the questions revealed five different key areas that contributed to the overall academic success of the participants including strong family support, peer support, a positive working relationship with their teachers, learning life skills from basketball, and creating goals after high school. These findings support much of the previous work on athletes and academic success. In researching what is supporting academic success among urban high school basketball players it is the hope of this researcher that programs will be developed to more directly support academic success in high school basketball players.