Browsing by Subject "kaksoisuraurheilija"

Objectives: A student-athlete is a person who identifies him/herself as both an athlete and a student. Because both roles have demands, the demands overall can get high, which can predispose especially the young student-athletes to burnout symptoms. A strong identity can protect from burnout, but previous studies have had mixed results on the effect of the athletic identity to sport burnout and the association between student identity and school burnout has not yet been studied. The aim of this study was to evaluate how the strength of student and athletic identity are associated with school and sport burnout, and if there is an association between school and sport burnout in the population of student-athletes. Methods: The data used in this research were originally collected in the Winning in the Long Run-research project’s, a project studying student-athletes. The sample of this study consisted of 311 student-athletes. In this study, the information from the Winning In The Long Run- research project about the student-athletes sport burnout (SpBI-DC), school burnout (SBI), athletic identity (AIMS) and student identity (SIMS) was used. The relationships between sport burnout and athletic identity, school burnout and student identity and sport and school burnout were studied using regression analyses. Results: A stronger athletic identity was associated with fewer sport burnout symptoms, and a stronger student identity with fewer school burnout symptoms. In addition, it was observed that the more school burnout symptoms the student-athlete has, the more sport burnout symptoms she/he also experienced. Conclusions: The results suggest that a strong athletic identity might work as a protective factor from sport burnout symptoms for student-athletes and to consistently a strong student identity as a protective factor from school burnout. In the future, supporting the identity construction could be considered one way to prevent the student-athletes’ burnout symptoms in sport and school contexts. Because school and sport burnout were associated in this study, and studying and sports strongly intertwine in the lives of student-athletes, it raises a question of how possible it is for the student-athletes to distinguish the source of their burnout. In the future, it might be most beneficial to focus on supporting the student-athletes’ overall wellbeing in ensuring that there is enough support available for coping with the special demands of the dual career.