Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), University of Findlay, 2024, Education

E-sports, or online gaming, is a relatively new phenomenon taking place on high school campuses across the country. While many view online gaming through a negative lens, there is a growing body of research that E-sports participation provides similar benefits and detriments to those of traditional sports. The purpose of this paper was to identify factors that students, parents, staff and school stakeholders report as being important to participation on an E-sports team and how that compares to traditional sports. This qualitative case study consisted of interviews held with members from a rural Ohio high school E-sports team, members of traditional sports teams, coaches, parents and school district stakeholders. The findings of this study indicated that the benefits and detriments of E-sport and traditional sport participation were very similar. However, E-sport athletes described their participation through a personal, singular lens while traditional sport athletes explained their experiences through a shared group viewpoint. The findings of this study supported the literature in that there are shared benefits and detriments of E-sport participation with traditional sports, but there is also a great need for future research into how athletes perceive these similarities.

Committee: Dr. Jeremy Coles (Committee Chair); Dr. Scott Grant (Committee Member); Dr. Amanda Ochsner (Committee Member) Subjects: Social Research; Technology