The Level of Sports Participation and Academic Success among Malaysian Student-Athletes

Abstract

There has been an ongoing debate about the relationship between student-athletes and their academic success. Some believe that student-athletes can never excel with their academic studies, especially those who participate to a high level in sports. Hence, the aim of this study is to examine the level of sports participation and academic success among Malaysian student-athlete. A cross-sectional study with open-ended questions was performed on 836 student-athletes who volunteered to participate in this study (Age, 21.13±1.23 years old; weight, 63.18±7.50 kg; height, 169.34±4.82 cm; BMI, 22.01±2.72 in score index). Data collection was executed through a web-based online platform, namely Google Forms, whereas analysis of one-way ANOVA was performed to analyze the differences in the level of sport participation towards academic success. Sports participation consists of involvement at the national, state, university, club and college levels, whereas academic success or performance was examined through Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA). As a result, the mean of CGPA among respondents was in category 3 which was between 3.01 – 3.33 points. Other than that, this study fails to reject the hypothesis (p > .05, F (4, 831) = .64) where there is no statistically significant difference among student-athletes in their level of sport participation and academic success. It can be concluded that regardless of student-athletes’ levels of sport participation, no difference detected in their academic success. As a recommendation, future studies can explore the extent of similarities in the student-athlete’s academic success.