Performance Based Motivation: Measuring Achievement of High School Student-Athletes at a Rural Mid-West American Public High School

This study was devoted primarily to the development of athletics in the high schools of Michigan. Although interscholastic sports programs have been studied frequently, the debate about their educational relevance continues to this day. When people enter this debate they often exaggerate the benefits or the problems associated with varsity sport programs. Supporters emphasize glowing success stories, and critics emphasize shocking cases of excess and abuse, but the most accurate descriptions probably lie somewhere in-between. Nonetheless, both the supporters and critics call attention to the many important issues concerning the relationship between sports and education. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which academic and athletic motivation can predict the academic performance of student-athletes at a rural mid-west American public high school. An additional purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between academic and athletic motivation in high school student-athletes, as well as the motivational patterns across academic motivation, student athletic motivation, and career athletic motivation. Student-athletes at Byron High School, MI were surveyed in order to obtain this data during the 2013-2014 academic year. Data were collected by means of a survey via 30 Likert-style items using a 6-point rating scale. Overall, participants indicated a proportionate balance of levels of motivation across the three motivation subscales. The data analysis also suggest that the correlation between academic and student athletic motivation and academic performance as measured by high school GPA is statistically low. Additionally, there was a great deal of statistical significance in regards to academic and student athletic motivation. Overall, student-athletes are transferring their confidence and effort in the athletic domain to the academic domain.Master of ArtsLiberal StudiesUniversity of Michigan-Flinthttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143251/1/Schartzer.pd