In this study we aimed to explore factors associated to Dual Career (DC) satisfaction in Swedish university student-athletes to contribute to the evaluation of the Swedish sports university system. We considered DC satisfaction as a key indicator of the student-athletes’ ability to maintain an optimal DC balance in their striving for DC excellence and searched for the factors facilitating this process. Using a repeated cross-sectional design, we sampled participants during three consecutive educational years (2020-2022) using an online survey. We sampled 561 high-performance university student-athletes (54% female) with a mean age of 23.82 (SD = 3.35). The student-athletes represented all universities and 54 sports federations in the Swedish sports university system. We performed a Chi-squared Autonatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) analysis to test the potential relationships between independent variables (i.e., DC coping, DC competences, DC support, mental health, autonomy, competence and relatedness support, perception of study and sport flexibility, gender, hours worked alongside DC, and years of study at university) and the dependent variable (i.e., DC satisfaction). Our findings showed that the factors related to DC satisfaction were student-athletes’ DC coping (i.e., their ability to cope with interrelated sport, study, and private life challenges), together with receiving relevant DC support and experiencing relatedness. Taken together, this points towards the importance in creating DC development environments (DCDEs) characterised by individualised empowerment support (i.e., complementing student-athletes coping efforts and adding to their DC competences) and strong peer-relationships with relatedness in a community of student-athletes. © 2024 The Author(s).

Att vara elitidrottare är något du är under en begränsad tid. Det är en fantastisk period som följs av en annan tid med nya spännande utmaningar. För att komma väl förberedd till tiden efter din elitidrottskarriär har du möjligheten att kombinera din idrottssatsning med studier. Det innebär att du har en karriär med två huvudsakliga spår, vilket kallas för att genomföra en dubbel karriär (eng: dual career). Förbered dig på denna framtida övergång genom att träna på olika färdigheter som kommer att behövas i en kommande karriär, utforska andra intressen i livet förutom idrott, och kombinera idrott med studier eller arbete.

In 2018, the first version of the Swedish national dual career (DC) guidelines was issuedby the Swedish Sports Confederation to answer the call from the EuropeanUnion’s guidelines on DCs (2012) and to promote a system of DC support acrossSwedish National Sports Universities (RIUs) and Elite Sports-Friendly Universities(EVLs). The policy document was a culturally informed synthesis of current nationaland international DC research, best practice examples across RIUs/EVLs, and in linewith the Swedish strategy for Sports. Since that time, Swedish DC system at universitylevel has been developed, which is seen, for example, in annual educations for DCpractitioners across RIUs/EVLs and national sports federations, as well as in establishingthe role of a DC-coordinator and national standard for DC policy for study flexibilityacross all universities. Alongside this organizational development there has beena rapid increase in DC research. Several reviews (e.g., Stambulova & Wylleman, 2019;Tessitore et al., 2021, Kegelaers et al., 2022) and recent FEPSAC position statement onathletes’ DCs (Stambulova et al., 2024) contribute to development of the EuropeanDC discourse promoting athletes’ striving for DC excellence. Considering the developmentsmade, a national working group of practitioners and DC researchers acrossRIUs/EVLs and officials of the Swedish Sports Confederation met in a series of meetingsduring 2023-2024 to update the Swedish national DC guidelines. The updatedversion outlines the organizational model for RIUs and EVLs centered around developingDC development environments (Storm et al., 2021) and with context-informedand evidence-based guidelines on how to facilitate student-athletes’ (a) academicdevelopment, (b) athletic development, (c) balance between sport, studies, and privatelife, and (d) career transitions. The updated guidelines set a national standardfor DC support in line with recommendations from national (e.g., Linnér, 2021) andinternational DC research (e.g., Stambulova et al., 2024).

Athletes’ dual careers (DC) can be understood as an individual process of using personalresources and strategies to cope with the challenges of being a student-athlete(e.g., Brown et al., 2015), summarized as viewing DCs from a holistic developmentalapproach (Wylleman, 2019). DCs can also be understood from a holistic ecologicalapproach (HEA; Henriksen & Stambulova, 2023), considering athletes as embeddedinto a system of interrelated sport-, study- and private life relationships in a DC developmentenvironment (DCDE; Henriksen et al., 2020). In this presentation we willshare how the HEA has supported an update of the Swedish national guidelines forelite athletes’ DCs (Swedish Sports Confederation, 2018) to promote an ecologicallyinformed system of DC support across Swedish sports universities. This updated policydocument (2024) is informed by the HEA in several ways to help optimize environmentsfor student-athletes and strengthen the cooperation between stakeholdersinvolved. For example, the updated guidelines outline the organizational model forSwedish sports universities centered around optimizing DCDEs and their essentialfeatures (Storm et al., 2021). Here, the HEA helped to clarify a leading role of a DCsupport team with a DC-coordinator and DC support providers in sport and studydomains, in charge of interorganizational collaboration (Mathorne, 2021), macro- andmicro-level integration, holistic structure, and developing a shared DC philosophyacross stakeholders (e.g., Linnér et al., 2020). The guidelines also emphasize the importanceof career transition support based on transition environment frameworks (Henriksen et al., 2023) for example, in student-athletes’ transition from national elitesport high schools to sports universities. Annual national DC education held by theSwedish Sports Confederation has supported the process of integrating an environmentperspective in the DC support across Swedish sports universities.

The field of sport and exercise psychology research is growing steadily, its journals receive many more submissions than they can publish and we witness significant methodological and empirical progress. The journals in the field provide an outlet for multiple types of contributions including original empirical papers, scientific reviews, rigorously described case examples of applied work, methodological advancements, and more. As in any scientific field, we need these different types of contributions to move forward. Borrowing from an inspirational visualization of the research as a craft occupation (Forscher, 1963), we need not only to make bricks (facts, individual empirical studies) but also to build edifices or buildings (explanations, theories). Beyond scientific reviews (e.g., systematic and scoping reviews), however, scientists may experience unnecessary struggles when they set out to publish conceptual theory-building articles, perhaps because of a lack of accepted journal formats and templates for non-empirical scientific papers (Jaakkola, 2020). For example, Ph.D. students often engage in a new topic area. As their area is new, a systematic or scoping review is not viable, but they find that a paper outlining key ideas, models, and definitions could provide a solid theoretical foundation for their research. A foundation for which there is rarely space in their first empirical scientific paper. Journals may also reject conceptual papers because such papers do not fit with the aims and scope of the journal, or because reviewers judge the paper based on criteria that may be suitable for empirical papers or reviews but are misaligned with the aim of a conceptual paper. Despite the potential value of papers that develop concepts, integrate or expand theories relying neither on empirical data nor on a systematic review of the scientific literature, such papers remain a rare treat within the field of sport and exercise psychology. In SJSEP we wish to provide an outlet for conceptual, theoretical and non-empirical contributions that are rigorous, cogent, transparent, systematically developed, and hold the potential to move our field forward. These papers play a vital role by offering fresh and innovative perspectives, challenging existing ideas, and shaping the discourse within our discipline. Beyond a mere call for such papers, in this editorial, we outline key quality criteria for conceptual papers within the context of an SJSEP article.

The aim of the symposium is to invite young career scholars, who finalized their withinthe last 3 years, to share their experience of transitioning into their post-careerphase in life. In this symposium each presenter chooses a career theory/frameworkand applies it as a guide for sharing their post-career transition experience. Doingthis we want to illustrate various career theories/frameworks (Stambulova et al., 2021)and exemplify different career trajectories both within and outside academia afterPhD, as well as provide our experiences and coping for other scholars (e.g., PhD-studentsand/or supervisors) to learn from. After a short introduction, the first presenterwill use Stambulova’s (2009, 2020) transition model to share his experience of transitioninginto the leadership-role at a sports university trying to practice what hepreached in his about athletes’ dual careers. The second presenter will share hertransition to a postdoctoral position in a new country using Savicka’s (2005) theoryon career construction as a lens. The third presenter will reflect on her career trajectorypost-and how openness and curiosity towards lived experiences (Harris, 2009),in both research and applied practice, has provided a sound foundation for a richand meaningful, yet unpredictable and messy, career. The fourth presenter will followproviding an ecological examination (e.g., LaVoi, 2016) of a young woman’s attemptto develop a career in academia outlining the challenges in trying to enter ahigh-performance and male-dominated context. After the presentations a generaldiscussion will follow focusing on, for example, how the PhD-education preparedthe presenters for the new pressures (i.e., challenges) in the post-phase and howcareer-theory and research knowledge helped them to cope. Major lessons learnedwill also be shared to support the development and successful transitions of futurePhD-graduates in sport and exercise psychology.

Coming into my PhD I never would have thought what would follow. What followedwas several years of national and international collaboration on athletes’ dual careerssupporting my PhD on the same topic (Linnér, 2021). This granted me the opportunityto later accept a part-time position and take a lead as Head of operations anddevelopment at Halmstad university as one of six National sports universities in Sweden.Using Stambulova’s (2009, 2020) athletic career transition model as an inspirationmy aim for this presentation is to share my journey of transitioning from PhDto a multifaceted role encompassing teaching, administration, research and development,and the helm of operations and development running a sports university.In essence, my transition can be summarized as moving from researching athletes’dual careers and exploring dual career development environments (e.g., Henriksenet al., 2020) to developing a dual career development environment and support inpractice, while continuing to do research and collaborate about athlete’s career developmentand transitions. Keeping in mind a whole-person approach, my transitionmainly revolved around vocational changes, whereas psychological, psychosocial,and financial aspects of my life remained mainly the same. I will outline my key transitiondemands including the dual responsibility of steering the sports university towardsincreased integration of efforts based on developing stakeholder relationshipswhile also contributing to research through paper publication as a central expectationwithin the university. I will summarize my main coping resources (e.g., organizationalskills, determination, an in-depth understanding of athletes’ dual careers,pre-existing relationships with stakeholders, and supportive colleagues) and barriers(e.g., lack of understanding from the organization) and outline my coping strategies(e.g., strategic planning, self-compassion) in balancing the roles of being a youngscholar and an organizational leader.

Introduction and Aim 

Research reveals that athletes might have short- and long-term benefits of combining sport and education, that is, pursuing a dual career (DC) pathway (Stambulova & Wylleman, 2019). To facilitate this challenging pathway, the Swedish Sports Confederation (2018) has developed the Swedish national DC guidelines for the recently established system of National Sports Universities (RIUs) and Elite-sports Friendly Universities (EVLs). The Swedish Sports Confederation invited Halmstad University DC research group to conduct an annual national survey to monitor the DC experiences of RIU/EVL student-athletes for three years (2020-2022). In this presentation we will share the findings from three years of data collection across RIUs/EVLs with an emphasis on what factors contributed to the successful DC coping of Swedish university student-athletes. 

Method

Officially recognized RIU/EVL student-athletes received an invitation by e-mail to take part in the study by liaisons at each RIU/EVL. Across the years we sampled 561 participants (54% female) with a mean age of 23.82 (SD = 3.35). The participants represented all universities in the system (n = 22), 54 sport federations and studied across a variety of educations with an average study pace of 87%.  

The survey was developed for this project based on the Swedish national DC guidelines, the Dual Career Survey (Stambulova et al., 2015) and relevant existing and validated instruments, all informed by national and international DC research (e.g., Brown et al., 2015; Linnér et al., 2019) and findings from two Erasmus+ sports projects: the Gold in Education and Elite Sport project (GEES; e.g., De Brandt et al., 2018) and the Ecology of Dual Career project (ECO-DC; e.g., Henriksen et al., 2020). The instrument covered (a) demographic information, (b) DC-experiences including coping with perceived challenges, the Dual Career Competency Questionnaire for Athletes (De Brandt et al., 2018), health and wellbeing (e.g., Besèr et al., 2014), DC support, and need-supportive interpersonal behaviours from key support providers through the Interpersonal Behaviours Questionnaire (Rocchi et al., 2017), and (c) overall satisfaction with RIU/EVL and DC. 

Results 

Using a classification and regression tree analysis (Machuca et al., 2017) we explored associations between factors related to successful DC coping. Findings of this study indicated that the key factor for coping with the DC is student-athletes’ organization and planning competence (e.g., plan in advance and use time efficiently) and that stakeholders DC support and competence-needs-supportive behaviors can compensate student-athletes’ lack of organization and planning competence. Findings also show that the combination of factors leading to least successful coping is low organization and planning competence in combination with low emotional competence (e.g., stress management). 

Conclusions

Previous research has revealed a plethora of factors and competences (e.g., De Brandt et al., 2018) related to student-athletes’ DC success. This study helps support providers in suggesting what matters the most. These findings provide important implications for how DC support can be improved to facilitate sustainable DCs of athletes at RIUs/EVLs in Sweden. Among such implications is the importance of monitoring students-athletes’ ability to plan and, when necessary, provide DC support to facilitate development of such a competence. 

Grounded in the Scandinavian context and by sharing research findings, good practice examples and recommendations for support, this symposium aims to facilitate understanding of athletes’ dual career (DC) experiences in the process of maintaining balance in the face of challenge, or even global crises. The need to safeguard athletes’ development by facilitating the balance between sport and education has been highlighted by the European Union guidelines on DCs of athletes (2012), and research has since developed and flourished (Stambulova & Wylleman, 2019). After a brief introduction by the organizer the symposium is structured keeping in mind a developmental perspective and moving from research to practice. Researchers and practitioners across three Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) will collectively share knowledge throughout athletes’ DCs in relation to childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and from primary to secondary/high school and university level.