Identifying Element of Academic Enhancement Support for Student-Athlete Using Fuzzy Delphi Method

Student-athletes who are enrolled at the undergraduate level in higher educational institutions in Malaysia have the challenge of raising their academic achievement. Preliminary survey shows that nearly 40% of student-athletes have cumulative grade point average (CGPA) below 3.00. This study aimed to develop a framework of academic enhancement support for student-athletes in Malaysian Public Universities. Problems, in order to improve academic achievement among student-athletes, are due to factors that do not support the improvement of academic achievement among student-athletes during their study sessions. As a result, student-athletes could not be maintained in the session of study, scholarship, and the implications from the result are they are not allowed to participate in training and also competition. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify elements of support to enhance academic achievement for student-athletes. Qualitative research approach involves 12 respondents representing academia, management institutions and the management of student-athletes to explore elements that could enhance academic achievement for student-athletes. A total of 12 experts representing academia, management institutions and the management of student-athletes were selected to analyze the fuzziness consensus of experts. All collected data were analyzed using the fuzzy Delphi method. The result of the analysis found that there are 22 elements that fulfill the requirement consensus of experts, which threshold value is equal and less than 0.2, the percentage of the expert group is more than 75%. Therefore, 22 elements of support to help undergraduate student-athletes at public universities to improve their academic achievement.