Survey Of Self-Reported Psychological Variables: A Comparison Of Intercollegiate Athletes And Non-Athletes

Abstract

Background Purpose: Each country spends a lot of money on education. However, a study of college students reveals that between 10 and 20 percent of the student body is currently experiencing psychological issues (depression, anxiety, and stress). This research comprehensively examined academic anxiety, stress, and mental health in addition to the effects of gender and year of enrollment on these psychological issues.  Method: A sample of 204 (males=204; females=206) with 231 athletes and 179 non-athletes was selected and participated in the cross-sectional survey. Properly developed structured adapted scales were used to measure all the variables including academic anxiety, stress, and mental health. Statistical tests including Pearson correlation, regression, t-test and ANOVA were used for testing of the hypotheses. Computer software namely Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 25 was used. Results: According to the results, academic anxiety is significantly correlated with mental well being of athletes (r=.530). Likewise, academic stress is significantly correlated with mental well being of athletes (r=.688). Regression analysis also indicated a positive and significant of anxiety and academic stress on mental wellbeing of athletes (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the ‘r’ value of -.222** indicated a negative correlation between anxiety and mental health of non-athletes. Similarly, the ‘r’ value of -.067 indicated a negative correlation between academic stress and mental health of non-athletes. Regression analysis also reported that anxiety (B= -.698) and academic stress (B-.437) have significantly negative effect on mental wellbeing of non-athletes. Additionally, it has been found that gender and academic year of the participants did not produce any significant effect on changing the mean score of respondents on research variables anxiety, academic stress and mental health (p > 0.05) Conclusion: Based on the data analysis, it has been concluded that sports play a very significant role in coping with academic anxiety, stress and mental health of the students.