‘Zero Gravity’: Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Professional Intentions and Career Pathway Vision of Sport Management Students

Abstract

The pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has transformed the professional landscape and people’s career expectations. Especially among students, who now face new challenges not foreseen when they started their studies before the pandemic. Nevertheless, to date, there are no specific studies that examine in depth how the restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have reshaped the professional expectations of future sport managers. To address this research gap, the main purpose of the study is to explore how COVID-19 pandemic has affected the professional intentions and career plans of sport management students. To this end, we share the visions collected in written essays, that a group of 90 students from the Paris Saclay University (France) have concerning their professional future and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on it. The essays were qualitatively analyzed based on the self-concept theory of career development through the person–environment perspective. The findings suggest that the COVID-19 outbreak influenced sport management students’ self-concept, their future workplace and employment time choice planning, and overall, their vision and intention for their career path. Accordingly, sports management educators, educational institutions, and policymakers need to ensure that sport management curricula and teaching practices address the new demands of the sports industry prompted by the pandemic, together with the expectations and educational needs of the sport management students.

Female Higher Education Students’ Lived Experiences during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case Study Viewed through a Phenomenological Lens

“…Lupton and Willis [53], p. 5, stated that "it is evident that detailed and situated social research is vital to understanding how this crisis was affecting people across the world". Similarly, Glebova and López-Carril's [54], p. 807, research on the professional intentions and career pathway vision of sport management students recommended that "sport management curricula and teaching practices address the new demands of the sports industry prompted by the pandemic". By adopting a Merleau-Pontyan perspective, this paper has offered insights into the subjective realities of female students' embodied experiences and recognises that our understanding of the world is inseparable from our lived experiences and engagement with the environment.…”

Metaversity: Beyond Emerging Educational Technology

“…(1) It is a metaphor for the real world. (2) The virtual avatars of the users are customizable, facilitating telepresence, given the possibility of corporality. (3) Users can communicate with each other within the metaverse and can interact with it.…”

“…The pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has negatively affected the quality of education for almost 90% of the world's student population [1,2]. The primary strategy of educational institutions to reduce the spread of the virus was to avoid face-to-face pedagogical methodologies.…”

Impact of Remote Working on Recreational Physical Activity (RPA) Behaviours – a Case Study of the Covid-19 Lockdown in Poland

“…However, the research findings that emerged after the outbreak of the pandemic were generally concerned with the impact of introduced restrictions on lifestyle and physical activity (Alah et al, 2022;Griffiths et al, 2022;Glebova et al, 2022;Guler et al, 2021;Ekpanyaskul & Padungtod, 2021). Glebova and López-Carril (2023) report that sports students changed their personal values and future plans, but it is differentiated between students, and professional athletes are more constant in their plans. The analysis of the literature on the subject indicates the existence of a research, methodological and applicative gap in this area.…”