Perceptions of student athletes and the role of communicative behaviors: how communication can change the path of a student-athlete's academic success

Research has focused on different aspects of a student-athletes academic career, including their motivation, their successes and failures, and the different stereotypes placed on student athletes. This project addresses negative stereotypes and perceptions about student-athletes and argues that students place more internal attributions on student-athletes based on their communication behaviors in the classroom. The Situation Attitude Scale (SAS) surveyed students at a Southeastern University to indicate what communicative behaviors have an impact on perceptions and attributions. The results indicated that there was some significance between behaviors and attributions, such that students were more likely to make perceptions of student athletes when more passive behaviors were used. Results also indicated that there was significance between ethnicity and the type of attribution made. Clear results were limited due to the lack of specific measurements identifying which communication behaviors had more influence on students when making an attribution about a student athlete.