摘要：The overall aim of this paper is to study and discuss student-athletes’ beliefs
about athletic ability. Specifically, the aim is to analyze and problematize athletic
ability longitudinally and with a gender perspective as it is perceived, discussed,
and valued by student-athletes. A three-year and six-wave study was conducted
on 78 student-athletes (30 females and 48 males; Mage at T1 = 12.7, SD = 0.44)
attending a compulsory school with a sport profile. Additionally, semi-structured
interviews were conducted with 27 of the student-athletes (16 female and
11 male) during their second and third school year. Based on a parallel mixeddata
analysis with cross-talks and meta-inferences, the two main results of this
study are as follows: (1) entity beliefs increase and incremental beliefs decrease
during the three-year period, and (2) gender add a further understanding of the
student-athletes’ beliefs about athletic ability.
The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the potential
influence of the socialization processes on beliefs of athletic ability, and suggestions
for future research are provided.
