A Mixed Methods Approach to Identifying Administration Issues Pertinent in Interscholastic Sports

The purpose of this study was to investigate three propositions: a) What are the administration issues most pertinent to interscholastic sport today, as well as the next five years?, b) How important are those administration issues to athletic administrators?, and c) What are the potential implications of those pertinent administration issues to practicing athletic administrators? The literature provides a general overview of relevant issues surrounding interscholastic athletics. However, the importance and implications of relevant issues to practicing high school athletic administrators are difficult to discern. To answer the first proposition, the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) provided 10 contemporary administration issues that were most pertinent to interscholastic sport today, as well as the next five years. To answer the second proposition, a Likert-Scale was created so that practicing athletic administrators could rate each issue on a scale of 5 = extremely important to 1 = very little importance. A national study was conducted with athletic directors from the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (N = 170) annual conference. A one-tailed ANOVA was executed to determine significant differences among the 10 administration issues identified by the MSHSL. Four issues were found to be significant; Athletic Facilities, Athletic Training, Health Issues and Travel Teams. A Games-Howell post hoc was executed to determine significant differences across geographical regions of the United States. For the third proposition, semi-structured interviews were completed to provide insight on the implications for practicing athletic administrators. The results offer insight from which further investigations could be conducted to continue building on policies that influence interscholastic athletic administrators’ day-to-day accountability when overseeing their athletic programs

A Simon effect induced by induced motion and location: Evidence for a direct linkage of cognitive and motor maps

It has been argued that two distinct maps of visual space are formed: a cognitive map that is susceptible to illusions, and a motor map that represents the physical world veridically. In the present study, subjects responded to a nonspatial attribute of a visual target stimulus by pressing a left or right key, while an illusory horizontal displacement of the target was induced. A Simon-type effect was obtained to the induced target motion or position shift—that is, responses were faster when the illusory target motion or location corresponded to the response position. Further experiments indicated that the observed effects cannot be accounted for by attentional shifts. These results suggest that the content of the cognitive map does not only influence perceptual judgments but is also responsible for the automatic activation of response codes. In other words, perception and action seem to be fed by a common, cognitively penetrable, spatial representation

Parents and interscholastic sport: a mixed-method approach to identify salient issues

Parents are generally considered one of the strongest influences on interscholastic athletes. Unfortunately, empirical research identifying the most salient administrative issues associated with parents is scarce, leaving administrators to use anecdotal or dated information that is uninformed by empirical research. The current study bridged a gap in the literature by using a mixed-method design to identify which parent issues throughout the United States are most prominent to administrators. A national sample of interscholastic administrators (N = 170) from eight geographic regions revealed ten issues that are currently and predicted to be impactful five years into the future. The top three issues were Educating Parents, Keeping Athletics in Perspective, and Treatment of Coaches. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were then conducted with seasoned administrators to provide clarity on how these issues manifest themselves within interscholastic sport. Ultimately, this study offers a foundation from which further research and interscholastic policy can be influenced