A study of academic motivation of intercollegiate athletes and collegiate non-athletes

This study was designed to investigate and compare levels of academic motivation in intercollegiate athlete population with the college non-athlete population. Participants included college athletes (N=50) and college non-athletes (N=50) at Kean University. Data were obtained using the Academic Motivation Scale- College Version (Vallerand, Pelletier, Blais, Briere, Senecal, & Vallieres, 1992). It was hypothesized that a difference exists in the levels of academic motivation between the two populations. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare mean differences on main study variables between athlete and non athlete groups. Results suggest that the two populations are equivalent with regards to their levels of academic motivation.