Gender matters when sports engagement and self-efficacy interact with academic achievement
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Gender matters when sports engagement and self‑efficacy interact with academic achievement Ella Shoval1 · Miri Shachaf2 · Ornit Ramati‑Dvir3 · Boaz Shulruf4 Received: 10 July 2019 / Accepted: 11 October 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This study examines, through the lens of gender, whether engagement in sports, self-efficacy and grade level affect academic achievements of adolescents. The study comprised 491 10th–12th grade students—218 males and 273 females; 170 participated in competitive sports, 185 participated in non-competitive sports, and 136 were not involved in sports. We found in both genders a significant positive link between the sense of academic self-efficacy and academic achievement, and a negative link between the sense of self-efficacy in sports and academic achievement. However, girls engaged with the competitive sports showed better academic achievements than the boys and girls in the other groups, while boys engaged with competitive sports demonstrated the lowest academic achievements. In addition, we found that the variables examined provide stronger explanation of the academic achievement of boys than those of girls. Insights of this study should be incorporated into sports educators’ programs to further drive gender equality. Keywords Sport engagement · Academic achievements · Self-efficacy · Class grade · High school students · Competitive sports group
* Boaz Shulruf [email protected] Ella Shoval [email protected] Miri Shachaf [email protected] Ornit Ramati‑Dvir [email protected] 1
School of Education, The Academic College At Wingate, Netanya, Israel
2
School of Education, The Academic College At Givat Washington, Givat Washington, Israel
3
Gender Studies Program, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
4
Medical Education, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Rm 253, L2, Wallace Wurth Bld, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
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1 Introduction Many studies have dealt with academic achievements and comparisons between the genders, but there are no uniform findings on the subject. Some studies indicated that females have higher achievements (e.g. Stoet and Geary 2015), while others showed males having higher achievements than females (e.g. Mead 2006). Still others indicate that there are no significant differences between the achievements of boys and girls (e.g. Duckworth and Seligman 2006). Even when focusing on specific achievements in language or mathematics, the findings are not uniform: part of the research gives girls an edge in language skills, claiming that this edge remains stable over time and various ages (De Fraine et al. 2007), while other research claims that the differences are insignificant and inconsistent (Robinson and Lubienski 2011). Similarly, while some studies on mathematical achievements give boys an advantage over girls, others claim that the boys’ advantage diminishes with age until it disappears entirely in the upper grades (Rapp 2014). Can this lack of consistency in the research be explained b
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