Efficacy of European Sport Tutorship model (ESTPORT) in the dual career of athletes in Spain

The aim of this study was to know the influence of Estport model in the dual career of student-athletes, from San Antonio Catholic University (Spain), as part of the Erasmus + project: Development an innovative European Sport Tutorship model for the dual career of athletes- ESTPORT, through of the evaluation of their perceptions, regarding their sports and academic career within the sports tutor service. The sample consisted of 109 student-athletes, of which 59 were men and 50 were women with ages between 19 and 40 years (M = 26.10; SD = 4.62) belonging to the Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia (UCAM) and of different sports level: amateur (2.8%), semi-professional (40.4%) and professional (56.9%). Results showed that the pace at which the athletes carried out their studies was 1.8 ± 0.8 years per academic year. Regarding the difficulties of athletes to reconcile sports and studies, men lost more rhythm than women in studies (z = 3.2; p = .001). The role of the sports tutor was valued to a greater extent by the athletes who competed at the national level (z = 3.2; p = .001) since they consider it important to have someone who listens to them and were at their disposal (z = 3.4; p = .001), provide guidance with the necessary academic procedures within the university (z = 2.9; p = .003), be also a personal help (z = 2.8; p = .004) that assists and support them when managing the time in their academic career (z = 2.8; p = .005).The research is result of the European project ‘Developing an innovative European Sport Tutorship model for the dual career of athletes’ (557204-EPP-1-2014-1-ES-SPO-SCP). Call: European Union. Education, Audio-visual and Culture Executive Agency. Erasmus + Sport Program. Call EACS / S11 / 13 “Collaborative Partnerships” and “Not-for-profit European Sport” (Head of research: Antonio Sánchez-Pato)