▼ This study examined the perceptions of leadership style of Division III head basketball coaches and whether it had an effect on the perceived cohesion of the team. The relationships of leadership and cohesion with both success and satisfaction were also explored. In addition, this study also examined variables such as gender and player status (starters or non-starters) to determine if they had an effect on leadership and cohesion. A combination of convenience and random sampling was used to select potential participants for the study. After receiving the agreement to participate, packets containing a questionnaire for each athlete and head coach, as well as an explanation of the study and instructions, were mailed to the teams. Fourteen of the 21 teams returned their questionnaires, with 13 coach and 145 athlete questionnaires being usable. Athlete questionnaires consisted of 35 items from the Leadership Scale for Sport (LSS), examining four behaviors of leadership: Training and Instruction, Social Support, Democratic Behavior, and Positive Feedback. Also on the athlete questionnaire were 18 items from the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ), which measure four dimensions of cohesion: Attraction to Group - Task, Attraction to Group - Social, Group Integration - Task, and Group Integration - Social. One item for measuring overall satisfaction was included, as well as nine demographic items. Coach questionnaires included only the 35 leadership items and seven demographic items. Results showed a significant relationship between leadership and cohesion, specifically between Training and Instruction behaviors and three of the four cohesion dimensions (Attraction to Group - Task, Group Integration - Task, Group Integration - Social). Other noteworthy findings included the significant relationships found between leadership and success, leadership and satisfaction, cohesion and success, and cohesion and satisfaction. Also, there was a significant difference in perceived cohesion between starters and non-starters; no significant difference in perceive leadership behavior was found between these groups. There was a significant difference between genders on leadership behaviors, with men rating each behavior higher. No significant difference was found between genders on cohesion. A discussion of the results includes practical implications for collegiate coaches and athletes and recommendations for future research. Advisors/Committee Members: Turner, Brian.

Advisors/Committee Members: Kleinman, Seymour.

▼ The purpose of this study is to analyze the physical layout of the American baseball and football professional sport facility from 1850 to present and design an ideal-type appropriate for its evolution. Specifically, this study attempts to establish a logical expansion and adaptation of Bale’s Four-Stage Ideal-type on the Evolution of the Modern English Soccer Stadium appropriate for the history of professional baseball and football and that predicts future changes in American sport facilities. In essence, it is the author’s intention to provide a more coherent and comprehensive account of the evolving professional baseball and football sport facility and where it appears to be headed. This investigation concludes eight stages exist concerning the evolution of the professional baseball and football sport facility. Stages one through four primarily appeared before the beginning of the 20th century and existed as temporary structures which were small and cheaply built. Stages five and six materialize as the first permanent professional baseball and football facilities. Stage seven surfaces as a multi-purpose facility which attempted to accommodate both professional football and baseball equally. Finally, stage eight demonstrates a breaking away from the multi-purpose facility back to the single-purpose structure. This work proposes professional baseball and football sport facilities were limited in some manner by their location. However, economic goals mainly drove the professional sport facility to evolve. Thus, professional sport facilities transformed from temporary to permanent structures into magnificent theatres once baseball and football matured and sport entrepreneurs could depend on people spending more of their disposable income and leisure time within them. Finally, this work holds professional sport facilities grew to accommodate larger crowds and incurred modifications which made them into highly effective selling machines. Ultimately, this piece demonstrates the history of professional sport facility development, in essence, is the story of man’s eager search to make human interaction easier and more pleasurable in a permanent environment. Future professional sport facilities will likely continue these trends but should pay attention to other considerations such as reducing the massive costs associated with the increasingly growing structures. Advisors/Committee Members: Pastore, Donna L.

▼ Millions of children, and their parents, have developed a reliance on organized youth sport as the primary source of physical activity. Many of these children are participating on teams that are being directed by coaches that, unlike practitioners in many other fields, do not have access to any formal training. These coaches have a tremendous impact on the motivations of participating children but they are unfamiliar with strategies that may have a positive impact on the motivational climate they are creating. The United States is the largest producer of sport science research but little of it finds it ways to these practitioners. The purpose of this study was to design and implement an education workshop for youth sport coaches. The workshop employed the principles of andragogy (adult learning theory) as well as transformative learning theory in an attempt to create a revised meaning of one’s coaching experience and as a guide to action. Coaches were introduced to the tenets of, and strategies that employ, Self-Determination Theory (SDT). SDT posits that if the basic psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competency are met then the opportunity for intrinsically motivated behavior exists. Motivation is viewed upon a continuum with decreasingly positive consequences from intrinsic motivation to amotivation. Fourteen sixth grade travel basketball teams (7 male and 7 female) teams from the central region of a Midwestern State were randomly selected to participate in the study. Athletes (n = 107) were pre- and post-tested for levels of motivation. Seven of the coaches were randomly selected to participate in the coaches’ education workshop. A pre- and post-test was administered to the coaches and t-tests showed significant increases in their understanding of motivation in a youth sport setting and their understanding of SDT. A post-workshop coach’s evaluation revealed high inclination to implement coaching strategies that employ the principles of SDT. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) found no support for the hypotheses that athletes of workshop attending coaches will demonstrate significant increases in their self-determined motivation scores, a higher propensity to participate in basketball next season, or higher levels of satisfaction than athletes of coaches that did not attend the workshop. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) did find support for the hypothesis that no significant differences will be found on the basis of gender. Implications of these results are discussed and suggestions for future research are forwarded. Advisors/Committee Members: Fink, Janet S.

▼ Research on Sport Education (Siedentop, 1994) has shown the curriculum model to be effective in motivating students to undertake the specific sporting roles and engage in the student-centered tasks of the curriculum (Hastie, 1996). Despite this level of engagement, emerging evidence (Hastie, 2000) suggests that student leadership within the peer teaching tasks of the curriculum can be problematic for the development of particular content knowledge. The purpose of this study was to examine the evolution of content knowledge of a team of 6 students participating in the peer-assisted learning tasks of a Tag Rugby Sport Education curriculum unit. A qualitative case study design was employed. A didactic research methodology was utilized to study the evolution of participant content knowledge. The didactic protocol included collecting data regarding student intentions, actions and interpretations of content through the use of lesson observation and pre- and post-lesson participant interviews. Data analysis consisted of the identification of problematic episodes in the teaching-learning process or Critical Didactic Incidents (CDIs) during the peer assisted learning tasks and a search for configurations in the data across episodes. Participants demonstrated a high level of engagement and compliance with the intended content of the peer assisted learning tasks. Results revealed the instructional approach of peer teaching to be efficacious in developing participants’ knowledge of many of the lower complexity tag rugby content learning goals of the unit. Participants failed to learn higher order content pedagogical strategy primarily due to deficiencies in the student coach’s ability to elaborate content through appropriate demonstration, error diagnosis and task modification. The findings from this study lend support to Kirk and Kinchin’s (2003) proposal that the structure of the Sport Education curriculum allows students legitimate, peripheral participation in a community of practice. The ‘products’ of the peer assisted learning community, in terms of content learned, seems dependent on the quality of ‘coach’ preparation provided by the teachers. Teachers utilizing the curriculum must adequately prepare the student coaches for the tasks by teaching them, not only relevant content, but also pedagogical principles required to effectively elaborate the intended content. Advisors/Committee Members: O'Sullivan, Mary.