Searching for an optimal balance: Dual career experiences of Swedish adolescent athletes

Objectives: The paper presents a national level Swedish project aimed at examining adolescent student-athletes' dual career experiences (including sport, studies, and private life) during their first year at national elite sport schools (Swedish abbreviation RIGs will be used) with a particular focus on development of their athletic and student identities. The developmental model of transitions faced by athletes (Wylleman & Lavallee, 2004) and the athletic career transition model (Stambulova, 2003) served as underlying frameworks. Design: A longitudinal mixed-method research design was used with autumn-to-spring quantitative and qualitative parts. Method: Sixteen year old student-athletes, representing 27 sports and 33 RIGs (n = 261 in the first and n = 250 in the second measurement), completed three quantitative instruments. Additionally, in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 participants. Results: Results revealed (a) significant changes in the participants' transition/adaptation variables from the first to the second measurement accompanied by rather high perceived quality of adjustment at RIG both at the beginning and at the end of the educational year; (b) significant contributions of the transition variables to the perceived quality of adjustment with personal resources as a key predictor; (c) significantly higher athletic than student identity in both quantitative measurements, but with inter- and intra-individual differences with regard to balancing the two shown by the qualitative data. Conclusions: The study contributes to deeper understanding of dual career experiences of Swedish adolescent athletes; the authors provide recommendations for psychological dual career support services at RIGs and outline future research in the Swedish dual career model. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.