Student Athletes’ Causal Attributions for Sport and School Achievement in Relation to Sport Dropout and Grade Point Average

The present study longitudinally examined stability and change in the attributional profiles of Finnish student athletes (n = 391) in upper secondary sport schools. Moreover, it examined the extent to which these profiles, and changes in them, were associated with athletes’ level of sport competition and school achievements and dropouts at the end of upper secondary sport school. Using latent profile analysis, five different and highly stable attributional profiles were identified for student athletes: (a) depressive (6.9%), (b) athletic self-serving (23.0%), (c) average (16.4%), (d) learned helplessness (30.9%), and (e) responsible (22.8%). The results further showed that over the 3-year s…