2.1. Participants and Procedure

Prior to data collection, our research team reviewed the questionnaire with three sport psychology PhDs. We compiled a list of athletic department directors to be surveyed and communicated with them via telephone or in-person visits to explain the study’s purpose and request assistance with data collection. Based on each school’s survey schedule, we provided participating athletes with a detailed explanation of the study’s purpose and instructions for completing the questionnaire, which was distributed via QR code. We adhered to the relevant Research Ethics Committee guidelines for projects involving human participants, and all participants provided informed consent. Using a convenience sampling method, we selected seven colleges and universities from Zhejiang Province and Anhui Province, surveying a total of 260 college athletes. After excluding six invalid questionnaires, we analyzed 254 valid questionnaires, resulting in a validity rate of 97.69%. The sample included 113 female students (44.49%) and 141 male students (55.51%); 77 students specializing in football (30.31%), 55 in track and field (21.65%), and 26 in basketball (10.24%); and 36 freshmen (14.17%), 42 sophomores (16.54%), 22 juniors (8.66%), and 154 seniors (60.63%) (Table 1).

Demographic information of the participants (n = 254).