Exploring the Impact of Coaches’ Emotional Abuse on Intercollegiate Student-Athletes’ Experiences

Despite widespread anecdotal accounts of coaches’ emotional abuse in intercollegiate sports, empirical literature is lacking. To address this gap, the present exploratory study was designed to explore how former intercollegiate student-athletes interpreted experiences of emotionally abusive coaching. Former female NCAA and NJCAA student-athletes (N = 14; Mage = 25.3 years) took part in semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Data were interpreted using a constructivist grounded theory approach. The final product of the research was a three-stage grounded theory explaining how former student-athletes interpret their experiences of emotional abuse over time organized into sections on antecedents to abuse, experiences and actions within the abusive program, and after the abuse. Implications for this work include the idea that individual student-athletes may have different experiences and recollections of coaches’ emotionally abusive behavior and that intercollegiate student-athletes are able to discern between “hard, but fair” coaching practices and emotionally abusive coaching practices

Parent Involvement in Young Adults’ Intercollegiate Athletic Careers: Developmental Considerations and Applied Recommendations

Student-athletes have to balance their sport, academic, and social lives during the transition to college and parent involvement is an integral, but potentially problematic, aspect of this transition. The present study investigated how key parent involvement factors may be associated with positive developmental outcomes in NCAA Division I student-athletes. Student-athlete participants (N = 514) were 46% male, ranged in age from 18 to 25 years (M = 19.76, SD = 1.43), and were recruited from athletic departments at two NCAA Division I member-institutions. Participants completed online surveys with items assessing their perceptions of parent involvement (support from parents, contact with parents, academic engagement, athletic engagement) and student-athlete development (academic self-efficacy, athletic satisfaction, well-being, individuation). After controlling for individual and family demographic factors, parent academic and athletic engagement positively predicted student-athlete academic self-efficacy and athletic satisfaction; parent athletic engagement negatively predicted student-athlete depressive symptoms; all aspects of parent involvement were strong negative predictors of emotional independence; support from parents and parent academic engagement were strong negative predictors of functional independence; and support from parents was a negative predictor and athletic engagement a strong positive predictor of student-athletes’ attainment of adult criteria. The present research enhances understanding of the role parent involvement may play in student-athlete development and thus may inform the creation of evidence-based policy and programming at NCAA Division I member-institutions

Parent-child communication in sport: Bridging the gap between theory and research

Parent-child communication is integral to the acquisition of positive developmental outcomes from sport. This position paper offers useful interdisciplinary frameworks and theories for future researchers as they investigate questions pertaining to parentchild communication in organized youth sport. We propose such work is enhanced when grounded in family, human development, and interpersonal communication theory and literature. Specifically, theoretical frameworks from these areas assist researchers in determining salient research questions, choosing appropriate methodologies, and most importantly in the interpretation of findings. As researchers attempt to further understand parental influence in sport, the role of specific family processes like communication will shed light on the potential mechanisms that drive youth’s developmental outcomes. This knowledge will likely lead to better outcomes for youth participating in sport, and better relationships among family members in and out of the sport context. By gaining greater understanding of this phenomenon, researchers will have a more complete set of tools to educate parents, administrators, and coaches in an evidence-based way

A history of parent involvement in organized youth sport:A scoping review

A fundamental step in describing a research field is the review and synthesis of accumulated knowledge. Multiple qualitative reviews have been conducted over the last decade to provide a summary and commentary on the growing literature in the area of youth sport parenting. However, these reviews have focused on contemporary findings in the field, largely ignoring work in the area that began in the late 1960s. In light of this underdiscussed history, there remains a need to highlight the historical foundations of the youth sport parenting literature, the transitions that shaped the trajectory of work, as well as the contemporary research that informs our current understanding. The purpose of this scoping review was to provide a historical analysis of the literature on parent involvement in organized youth sport. In conducting the analysis, we identified key concepts and trajectories that define the field’s foundational (1968–1981), transitional (1982–1998), and contemporary (1999–2020) periods. Specifically, this review not only sought to define and summarize these periods of research but also to use the synthesized knowledge to frame remaining gaps and potential future directions for the field

Parental Involvement Among Collegiate Student-Athletes: An Analysis Across NCAA Divisions

Despite emerging evidence of a link between parental involvement and student-athletes’ (SA) experiences, and the desire for educational programming for parents of these SAs, previous research has been limited to the Division I level. This has prevented the ability to inform, develop, and deliver parent programming across the NCAA’s diverse membership. The present study was designed to descriptively assess SA reports of parental involvement (i.e., support, contact, academic engagement, athletic engagement) across NCAA Division I, II, and III member institutions and examine the potential impact of this involvement on SAs’ experiences (i.e., academic self-efficacy, athletic satisfaction, well-being, individuation). Participants were 455 SAs (53% female; 81% Caucasian; Mage = 19.81, SD = 1.65) from DI (30%), DII (37%), and DIII (33%) institutions, who completed an online survey with items assessing parental involvement and SA experiences. Regarding academic classification, 32% were freshmen, 24% sophomores, 22% juniors, and 22% seniors. Results provide novel evidence for an absence of division-wide differences in average levels of involvement and no variability in links between involvement and SA experiences across divisions. Results complement and extend previous research by offering a clearer understanding of differential associations between involvement and SAs’ experiences regardless of division, notably that involvement bolstered well-being but also strongly detracted from individuation. Findings highlight the importance of developing programs to promote positive and developmentally-appropriate parental involvement across the spectrum of intercollegiate athletics, especially given the absence of evidence-based resources presently offered by the NCAA

Youth sport during the COVID-19 pandemic: The influence of race and affluence on parents’ perspectives of youth participation

COVID-19 restrictions led to a nearly 50% decline in youth sport participation across the United States (Dorsch et al., 2021). Today, communities and sport organizations have resumed sport. However, research has yet to fully elucidate how COVID-19 restrictions impacted youth participation across different sociodemographic groups during the pandemic. The present study explored the association between race and affluence and their relationship with parents' attitudes toward children's youth sport participation before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Online questionnaires were completed by a nationally representative sample of 3706 parents (Mage = 39.57 ± 9.03 years) who had a child regularly participating in youth sport before COVID-19. Multivariate Analyses of Variance using Tukey post-hoc tests were conducted to examine the main effect differences by race and affluence and the interactive effects of race and affluence. Results suggest that race and affluence -- independently and in combination -- were salient categorical variables of children's weekly hours of sport participation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings highlight that White*high affluent groups had the highest rates of sport participation during the COVID-19 pandemic and that these families desire to invest more time and money at greater rates upon returning. Theoretically, designed intersectionality research is recommended to explore further effects of race and affluence in youth sport

USU Teaching Documentation: Dossiers from the Mentoring Program

The nation\u27s land grant institutions were founded on the principle of access for the general public to the knowledge gained through research and creative activity fostered in higher education. Central to our access mission is our dedication to teaching and learning that is informed by research and discovery, both of which must result, at least in part, from our engagement with our external constituents. That teaching and learning informs our research and vice versa; our research informs and aids in our teaching mission. This work, compiled by Professors Maria Luisa Spicer-Escalante and Cathy Ferrand Bullock, is focused on how the best, highly informed teaching is accomplished when done in an intentional manner. That intentional process helps the best university educators thoughtfully build their teaching story in an organized manner. Educators think about how they can successfully reach and engage their appropriate student audiences (or mentees), what they hope to accomplish, and how they intend to accomplish their goals. Further, as learning outcomes are identified and established, first-rate methods for course design, content inclusion, and continuous improvement can be outlined. Those of us who follow these intentional principles may then detail our growth and success along the way as teachers in the development of documents that tell our stories. Undoubtedly, the ability to clearly document and articulate that story will help academic personnel add to their tenure and promotion preparation in a very meaningful way. But as or even more important is the opportunity to describe these journeys with all the efforts, large and small, of improving their product in terms of learning outcomes and student growth and success. The nuggets of wisdom compiled by Professors Spicer-Escalante and Bullock, in USU Teaching Documentation: Dossiers from the Mentoring Program, will help teachers across the board from the new lecturer or assistant professor to the experienced professor dive into their teaching programs and find ways to continuously experiment and refine their approaches to our critically important student audiences. Good luck, teach on, and successfully document some of the most important work you all do! Frank Galey Executive Vice President and Provost Utah State University 2019https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/ua_faculty/1000/thumbnail.jp

Kicking to bigger uprights: Field goal kicking performance influences perceived size.

Perception relates not only to the optical information from the environment but also to the perceiver’s performance on a given task. We present evidence that the perceived height and width of an American-football field goal post relates to the perceiver’s kicking performance. Participants who made more successful kicks perceived the field goal posts to be farther apart and perceived the crossbar to be closer to the ground compared with participants who made fewer kicks. Interestingly, the current results show perceptual effects related to performance only after kicking the football but not before kicking. We also found that the types of performance errors influenced specific aspects of perception. The more kicks that were missed left or right of the target, the narrower the field goal posts looked. The more kicks that were missed short of the target, the taller the field goal crossbar looked. These results demonstrate that performance is a factor in size perception