Development Of A Valid And Reliable Survey To Evaluate Collegiate Student Athletes Satisfaction With Strength And Conditioning Coaches

Download or read book Development of a Valid and Reliable Survey to Evaluate Collegiate Student Athletes Satisfaction with Strength and Conditioning Coaches written by Megan L. Cottet and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Background: Nearly all National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) university individual and team sport student-athletes now have a strength and conditioning coach (SCC) as a member of their sports medicine team. Student-athletes spend significant time with their assigned SCC and, depending on the season, even more time than with their sport coach. As higher athlete satisfaction is commonly associated with increased performance, it is vital to ensure that they are satisfied with their SCC and the services and quality of care they provide. As a professional, the SCC should also want their student-athletes to be satisfied with them an the role they fill. Other members of the sport medicine team have been assessed for student athlete satisfaction; therefore, evaluating this member of the sports medicine team is warranted. Study Design: A three-round Delphi method was implemented to develop the strength and conditioning coach student-athlete satisfaction (SCC-SASS) survey. It was then piloted to a group of student-athletes to evaluate reliability, followed by the implementation to DI and DII student-athletes. Purpose: To develop a comprehensive survey for student-athletes that assess their satisfaction with their SCC and the services they provide and establish the tool's face and content validity. Part two of this study was to determine the survey's reliability and evaluate which characteristics correlate with higher or lower satisfaction scores. Methods: A three-round Delphi method utilized content experts to reach survey content consensus. The first round was completed by 28 experts, the second round by 24, and 22 experts completed all three rounds. Experts rated items on a five-point Likert scale of importance (1=not at all important, 5=very important). Consensus was achieved with >75% agreement of the expert panel rating >4 on the Likert scale for round 1. For round two, items with a mean >4.00 were kept and reevaluated on round three, where items with a mean >4.33 were kept. Two groups of NCAA student-athlete were sent this survey from their SCC or Athletic Director, The survey was sent to male and female and team sport athletes. The first group (4 males, 21 females) took the survey two times, one to six days apart and the scores were evaluated to assess the reliability of the tool. Next, the survey was sent to NCAA Division I and II SCCs and athletic directors to distribute to student-athletes to measure perceptions of their strength coach. Results: The Delphi method resulted in a 33-item survey, The reliability test resulted in an ICC of .957. Student-athletes that took the survey twice had an ICC of .957. There were no differences in mean satisfaction scores between Division I and II or male and female student-athletes. There were no differences in mean satisfaction scores between individual and team sport athletes. There were no differences in mean satisfaction scores between student-athletes with male or female SCCs, or graduate assistant or professional staff SCCs. Finally, 94.5% of athletes reported being overall satisfied with strength and conditioning services. Conclusions: A valid and reliable survey was created to assess student-athlete satisfaction with their SCC and the services they provide. Validity was established through the Delphi method, utilizing an expert panel. The reliability was established using a group of student-athletes taking the survey twice, one to six days apart. The administration of the SCC-SASS to NCAA DI and DII university student-athletes showed that satisfaction levels are independent of group characteristics or strength coach characteristics, indicating the student athlete's satisfaction level is a result of the interactions and delivery of services of the SCC.