Exploring student-athlete support services at two NCAA Division I universities

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to utilize an exploratory research design to help identify current student-athlete support services educational programs at two NCAA Division I institutions. The researcher considered the overall student-athlete experience by identifying and describing what resources student athlete support services provide, how student-athletes are or are not utilizing these services and applying high impact educational practices to these services. It is clear that just within a single division, overall athletic spending and funding can drastically vary across institutions. This overall discrepancy helped establish a cause for concern in the overall resources and educational programming received by Division I student-athletes. Two NCAA Division I institutions were studied using 24 semi-structured interviews with student-athletes and administrators and presented several themes including: (1) the utilization of structured programming as a driving force to student-athlete support services, (2) the student-athlete perspective on available support services and benefits, (3) the student-athlete barriers to utilizing student-athlete support services, (4) the student-athlete/athletics split campus “bubble” and (5) the implementation of high impact educational practices. The researcher also explore what services are missing and how they could be implemented in the intercollegiate athletics setting moving forward. The results presented are likely of importance to college administrators interested in understanding how to develop meaningful student-athlete support services directly related to high impact educational practices, while supporting student-athlete interests and constraints. For example, administrators can learn to establish programming for their students on campus and create a comfortable climate and connection between athletics student-athlete support services and on-campus resources while striving for positive outcomes in academic progress rates (APR), graduation success rates (GSR), and grade point averages (GPA).