Abstract
In the USA, over 600,000 student-athletes participate in nationally organized intercollegiate sports and occupy socially prominent spaces on college campuses. Although their athletic accomplishments often garner much attention, there is growing interest in collegiate student-athletes’ academic achievement and its precursors. One set of factors that have been extensively examined in the literature as antecedents to academic performance are motivational, identity-based, and self-regulatory variables. Based on 73 studies using 79 unique samples of US collegiate student-athletes (N = 43,617), our meta-analytic findings indicated several factors were positive correlates (academic identity, academic motivation, role negotiation, and self-regulation) and negative correlates (athletic identity and athletic motivation) to grade point averages. Sample and sport characteristics moderated some of these relationships. We discuss implications for educational practice and future directions when considering how to best support student-athletes and to conduct research in this area.