Sports participation impact on the academic motivation

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This research is dedicated to the Christian Pillars of Houston Christian University and to applying these principles to engage, educate, encourage, and empower African American males to pursue excellence in academics, athletics, and every aspect of their lives.

Understanding the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of African American male athletes can provide insight into methods for enhancing their motivation in other areas of their lives, especially academically.

This research is imperative as it can provide African American male athletes with a perspective on their intrinsic and extrinsic motivations athletically and academically. The result can offer educators and educational institutions vital information to shape and reshape curricula and activities that engage African American male students in a manner that enhances their academic achievement.

Participants will be interviewed and allowed to share their athletic experience and the factors that influence their motivation

Participation in this will assist educators with understanding the motivation of African American male students and developing environments in which these students can elevate their academic successes.

African American male students' graduation rate is the lowest of ethnic groups in California, and it is also lower than that of African American females. Extracurricular activities have been shown to enhance academic achievement. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic challenged the educational achievement of some students, which exaggerated the low graduation rate of students. At the core of academic achievement is academic motivation.

This qualitative study will explore how African American male study shows that student-athletes' involvement in sports impacts their academic motivation. It will implement a phenomenological approach to obtain the experience and perception of college football players who played high school football in the Greater Los Angeles area. 

The theoretical framework will focus on Participants athlete’s high school and college experiences through a phenomenological study using Maslow’s Theory of Human Motivation and Deci / Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory. Participants will be college football scholar-athletes from the greater Los Angeles area who played football in high school. They will be interviewed with open-ended questions to allow for elaboration on their individual experiences.