Contextualizing racial differences in baseline neuropsychological assessment of collegiate athletes

Few studies have examined the relationship between racial identity and baseline assessment performance in collegiate athletes, and even fewer have contextualized results using structural factors linked to test performance. This study examined racial differences in baseline assessment performance before and after controlling for performance on a word-reading task as a proxy for education quality. We hypothesized that there would be racial differences in baseline performance but that controlling for education quality would reduce these differences.

For this observational cross-sectional study, 875 collegiate athletes were grouped based on racial identity (White = 661, Black = 165, Another Race = 49) and underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. Cognitive composite scores and intraindividual variability (IIV) were calculated for two neurocognitive domains: attention/processing speed and memory. Education quality was assessed with the Wechsler Test of Adult Reading (WTAR). ANCOVAs were used to examine racial differences in these cognitive domains before and after controlling for WTAR scores.

There were significant racial differences in both composite scores and in attention/processing speed IIV, p's < .001, f = 0.13-0.21. However, there were no significant racial differences in memory IIV, p = .97. After controlling for WTAR scores, there were no significant racial differences in the attention/processing (p = .530, f = 0.03) or memory (p = .183, f = 0.06) composite scores, and the relationship between racial identity and attention/processing speed IIV was less prominent (p = .014, f = 0.10).

Results suggest that racial differences at baseline assessment can be largely accounted for by education quality as assessed by the WTAR, which underscores the importance of considering sociocultural context when assessing racially diverse athletes.