Improve my Performance, Protect my State of Mind: How Collegiate Student-Athletes Engage with their Sports Data

Paper Title

Improve my Performance, Protect my State of Mind: How Collegiate Student-Athletes Engage with their Sports Data

Publication Info

• Topic area: Collegiate student-athletes' interaction with sports data in a data-intensive environment.
• Keywords: SportsHCI, collegiate athletics, data engagement, wearable technologies, performance metrics, mental well-being, reflective monitoring, coach-mediated data, selective disengagement, athlete-facing technologies.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Existing research on collegiate athletics and personal data engagement does not fully address how student-athletes navigate the contemporary data ecology, which includes athlete-facing technologies and coach-mediated systems. Prior studies often focus on recreational athletes or combine athlete and staff perspectives, leaving gaps in understanding the athlete-centered experience in high-pressure collegiate environments.
• Significance: Understanding how student-athletes engage with sports data is critical for designing technologies that support both performance optimization and mental well-being, especially as data becomes increasingly pervasive in collegiate sports.
• Motivation and related work: Prior work in SportsHCI has explored athlete data practices but often outside institutional structures. Earlier studies on collegiate athletics highlighted power asymmetries and limited athlete access to data. Recent technological advances (e.g., wearables) and policy changes (e.g., NIL rights, transfer rules) have shifted the landscape, necessitating updated research focused on the athlete perspective.

Solution

• Proposed approach: The study identifies four modes of engagement with sports data—performance-directive, reflective-monitoring, coach-mediated, and selective-disengagement—based on semi-structured interviews with 20 collegiate student-athletes.
• Novelty:
  1. Empirical findings on how student-athletes engage with sports data in a rapidly evolving technological and institutional context.
  2. Characterization of four distinct modes of engagement, including their reasons, practices, and trade-offs.
  3. Insights into the dual role of data as both supportive and mentally straining for student-athletes.
  4. Design considerations for creating athlete-centered technologies and policies.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 NCAA student-athletes across six sports.
  • Thematic analysis of transcripts using Braun and Clarke’s six-phase approach.
  • Identified patterns in how athletes interact with data, including motivations, practices, and challenges.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Four modes of engagement:
    1. Performance-Directive: Using data to guide training, evaluate performance, and target improvement.
    2. Reflective-Monitoring: Assessing physiological responses to training and recovery using wearables.
    3. Coach-Mediated: Relying on coaches to interpret and act on data collected via team systems.
    4. Selective-Disengagement: Intentionally stepping back from data to protect mental well-being or avoid overload.
  • Student-athletes navigate tensions between improving performance and managing mental strain caused by continuous feedback and visibility.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • The study updates prior research by focusing on athlete-facing technologies and the athlete perspective in a modern collegiate context.
  • Highlights the interplay between direct data access and coach-mediated systems, offering a nuanced view of engagement.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Sample: 20 NCAA student-athletes (14 women, 6 men) from six sports.
  • Methods: Semi-structured interviews analyzed thematically.
  • Metrics: Engagement practices, reasons, trade-offs, and mental impacts of data use.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Limited to well-funded collegiate programs; findings may not generalize to less-resourced settings.
  • Potential bias due to recruitment through athletic staff, which may have influenced participant responses.
  • Future work should explore longitudinal engagement, systemic inequities, and the broader implications of data practices.

Summary

This study investigates how collegiate student-athletes engage with their sports data in a data-intensive environment, identifying four modes of engagement: performance-directive, reflective-monitoring, coach-mediated, and selective-disengagement. The findings reveal that student-athletes balance the benefits of data for performance optimization with its mental strain, navigating tensions between visibility, autonomy, and institutional control. The study contributes to SportsHCI by providing an updated account of athlete-centered data practices and offering design considerations for technologies that support both performance and well-being. These insights are crucial for shaping future athlete-facing systems and policies in collegiate sports.