The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship and difference between how NCAA Division I, team sport student-athletes perceive their own leadership behaviors and how their head coaches perceive the same student-athletes' leadership behaviors. In addition, further analysis examined perceptions between student-athletes and head coaches based on the student-athletes' gender and academic year in school.
The study included 121 NCAA Division I, team sport student-athletes and their respective head coaches from two institutions in the Midwest. One of the institutions was a medium sized, four-year, co-educational private university and the second was a large sized, four-year, coeducational public university.
The first research question examined the demographic profile of the collegiate student-athletes participating in this study. The second research question studied the relationship between how NCAA Division I student-athletes perceived themselves demonstrating the Five Practices of Exemplary Student Leadership (Kouzes & Posner, 2008; Kouzes & Posner, 2013; Kouzes & Posner, 2014) and their respective head coaches' perceptions of these behaviors. Using Pearson product-moment correlation, three significant relationships existed between student-athletes and their head coaches for Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, and Enable Others to Act.
The third research question undertook paired samples t-tests to investigate the difference between how NCAA Division I student-athletes perceived themselves as demonstrating the Five Practices of Exemplary Student Leadership (Kouzes & Posner, 2008; Kouzes & Posner, 2013; Kouzes & Posner, 2014) and how their respective head coaches perceived them demonstrating these behaviors. Paired samples t-tests revealed significant differences between student-athletes and head coaches for each practice, Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart.
The fourth research question explored the difference between how NCAA Division I female and NCAA Division I male student-athletes perceived themselves as demonstrating the Five Practices of Exemplary Student Leadership (Kouzes & Posner, 2008; Kouzes & Posner, 2013; Kouzes & Posner, 2014) and how their respective head coaches perceived them demonstrating these behaviors. The researcher used ANOVAs and paired samples t-tests to analyze the question. ANOVAs revealed statistically significant differences for the practices of Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart. Paired samples t-tests revealed statistically significant differences for both genders with all Five Practices of Exemplary Student Leadership.
The final question studied the difference between how NCAA Division I student athletes, by academic year in school, perceived themselves as demonstrating the Five Practices of Exemplary Student Leadership (Kouzes & Posner, 2008; Kouzes & Posner, 2013; Kouzes & Posner, 2014) and how their respective head coaches perceived them demonstrating these behaviors. Similar to the fourth question, the researcher used ANOVAs and paired samples t-tests to analyze the data. ANOVAs revealed seven significant differences for four of the practices, Model the Way, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart. In addition, paired samples t-tests showed differences in 18 out of a possible 20 cases involving academic year in school and The Five Practices of Exemplary Student Leadership.
In conclusion, scores between student-athletes and coaches for Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, and Enable Others to Act showed a small, positive relationship; therefore, as student-athletes' scores increased so did their head coaches' scores. ANOVAs revealed significant mean differences in scores between female student athletes and their respective head coaches to male student-athletes and their head coaches. For all five practices, paired samples t-tests showed that the difference between mean student-athletes scores and mean head coaches scores were significant and that gender was not a differentiator when comparing scores for the practices. The independent variable with the most influence was academic year in school. Six-of-the-seven significant findings revealed smaller mean differences in scores between the upper-level student-athletes and coaches compared to lower-level student-athletes and coaches. Finally, significant differences existed in 18 of 20 possible cases comparing the mean scores of student-athletes to their head coaches for the Five Practices of Exemplary Student Leadership when examining student-athlete academic year in school.