Date of Conferral

2023

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Education

Advisor

Paulette Koss

Abstract

The dynamics between athletic coaches and their players have been widely studied with leadership as the focus. The problem was that there is limited literature on the differences in perceptions of high school student athletes regarding their coach’s leadership behaviors. The purpose of this group comparison study was to examine the differences in student athletes’ perceptions of their coach’s leadership behavior as measured by the Revised Leadership Scale for Sports scores between freshman, junior varsity, and varsity high school student athletes. Chelladurai’s multidimensional model of leadership was the theoretical foundation for this study. The invitation to the study with a link to an anonymous survey was distributed to the parents of high school student athletes through social media and resulted in a sample of 192 high school student athletes. The one-way analysis of variance and Bonferroni test revealed that there were statistical differences in the following leadership categories: democratic F (2,189) = 7.37, p < .05 between freshman and varsity participation levels and junior varsity and varsity participation levels; training and instruction F (2,189) = 3.11, p < .05 between the freshman and varsity participation levels, and situational consideration F (2,189) = 3.41, p < .05 between freshman and varsity participation levels. This study may support positive social change by informing current high school athletic coaches on how they might be perceived by student athletes and the implications of those perceptions when assessing the climate, culture, and efficacy of their athletic program. Additionally, this might also inform educational stakeholders on what coaching behaviors should be exhibited for each participation level when evaluating athletic coaches.

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