The Effects Of Sports Star Students On University Identity Of Current Students In Sports Universities And Colleges

Sports universities and colleges are an important part of higher education and their natural connections with sports stars have made them get more opportunities for media attention.The news that Olympic champion Sun Yang entered the Shanghai University of Sport to study for a doctorate degree and President Xi Jinping’s reply to the students of the champion class of Beijing Sport University sparked heated discussions on social media and aroused public attention to their universities.Therefore,it could be expected that sports star students,as a symbolic character,may also have an impact on students in their universities.According to social identity theory,meaning transfer model and associative network memory model,this study constructed related theoretical models and aimed to solve the following questions:1.Can sports star students have an impact on the university identity(UI)for current students in sports universities and colleges?2.What is the mechanism that sports star students have an effect on UI for students in sports universities and colleges? What factors are they affected and disturbed by?This study took current students of sports universities and colleges as the research object and current students of Shanghai University of Sport as the survey object.A total of 297 valid questionnaires were collected.SPSS 26.0 was used to perform descriptive statistical analysis,factor analysis,correlation analysis and independent sample T test.AMOS 24.0 was used to conduct confirmatory factor analysis and test the mediating effect of self-brand connection(SBC)and gender differences in mediating models.The moderated mediator and the mediating effect of SBC under different sports involvement(SI)levels were tested as well.In light of data analysis,research findings are as follows:1.Athlete star brand image(ASBI)had a significant positive effect on SBC;2.SBC had a significant positive effect on UI;3.SBC played a part mediating role on mediating model.An indirect effect value of16.9% and a direct effect value of 41% were conducted by bias corrected percentile method after bootstrap 5000 tests;4.Gender differences were shown on mediating models: male group has a part mediating effect,but there is no mediating effect for female group;5.SI moderated the relationship between ASBI and SBC,but it did not play a moderating role in the relationship between SBC and UI;When SI was in the middle level,the mediating effect of SBC still existed,indicating that the moderated mediator was established;6.The time when students knew sports star students attend to universities and colleges(either before or after enrollment)had a significant impact on university identity for students.To the best of researcher’s knowledge,it is the first empirical study to try to explore the impact of ASBI on UI of current students in sports universities and colleges.The moderated mediator constructed by this study thoroughly examined the mechanism among ASBI,SBC,SI and UI.It has certain value and significance for the proof and expansion of theories.This study proposed that sports universities and colleges could foster students’ UI with methods of combinations of ASBI,improvement of students’ SI and representation of deep cultural confidence.Meanwhile,longitudinal research designs and rigorous probability sampling methods were encouraged to adopt for future researches in order to enrich research topics and enhance the interpretability of models.