Multidimensional Commitment of Intercollegiate Student-Athletes: Its Effects on Intention to Leave and Satisfaction

Abstract

Given the importance and relative financial investments institutions formulate regarding student-athletes, intercollegiate coaches and administrators must make strategic decisions in recruiting and retaining them. A lack of student-athlete persistence is detrimental to individual teams and athletic departments as a whole; thus, every effort needs to be made to retain these individuals. Furthermore, Riemer and Chelladurai (1998) argue that the success of an intercollegiate athletic department should be, at least to some degree, based on the satisfaction of its student-athletes. An important first step in this regard is to understand the dynamics of student-athletes' continued participation with (or intention to leave) their institution and their satisfaction. Based on Meyer and Allen's (1991) multidimensional conceptualization of commitment (i.e., affective, normative, and continuance commitment), the purpose of this study was to (a) assess student-athlete commitment, (b) apply the multidimensional conceptualization of commitment to three relevant foci (i.e., coach, institution, and team), and (c) relate these components of student-athlete commitment to the student-athletes' intention to leave their current university and satisfaction (with their coach, with their university, and with their team). In addition, differences in levels of commitment were examined based on gender, rank (i.e., upper-vs. under-classmen), and playing status on the team (i.e., starter vs. non-starter).Student-athletes from 11 team sports from a large, Division I-A, Midwestern university were selected to participate in this study (n = 190). Results of the study showed female student-athletes were significantly higher in their levels of commitment to their university and team, while male student-athletes were significantly higher in their affective commitment to their head coach. With regard to playing status, starters were significantly higher in their commitment to their coach.Commitment was significantly related to intention to leave for all three foci examined. Of the three, commitment to team explained the most variance (17.5%) in intention to leave. All three foci of commitment were also significantly related to satisfaction, with commitment to coach explaining the most variance (68.6%). Possible explanations for these findings, along with directions for future research on student-athlete commitment will be discussed.

Volume 13 Issue 9 Complete Issue

“…Because employee resignation causes numerous adverse effects to organizations, excessive voluntary resignation from employees is not an event with which organizations are content (Wu, Tsai & Yeh, 2014); thus, this topic has received widespread attention from management researchers. In the field of sports research, the turnover intention of student athletes has been studied by several foreign scholars (Turner & Pack, 2013); however, this problem has not been studied by Chinese scholars, with the few sports-related turnover intention studies focusing on physical education teachers and sports industry employees (Zhang, Gang & Zhang, 2010).…”

One and Done: Examining the Relationship Between Years of College Basketball Experience and Career Statistics in the National Basketball Association

“…Collegiate underclassmen leaving school early to turn professional is an issue that spans the academic canon over the past several decades (Caro & Doval, 2017; Fisher, 1996; Kobin, 1994; Rogers, 2002; Rosner, 1998; Sanders, 2014; Turner & Pack, 2007; Wong et al, 2010; Zola, 2012). Yet little is known if, when a basketball player enters the National Basketball Association (NBA) after only 1 year of playing in college, their lack of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) experience helps or hinders their success at the professional level.…”

Toward a Multidimensional Model of Athletes’ Commitment to Coach-Athlete Relationships and Interdependent Sport Teams: A Substantive-Methodological Synergy

“…Moreover, given the links with individuals' feelings and decisions about their occupation (e.g., Meyer et al, 2002), it is important to consider whether affective, normative, and continuance commitment perceptions about one's team/relationship might not only shape athletes' intentions to remain part of that team/relationship, but might also correlate with their intentions to continue their involvement in their sport. To date though, empirical recognition of the three-factor model within sport has been sporadic (e.g., Turner & Pack, 2007), and there has been no systematic construct validation work conducted within athletic contexts. With that in mind, the guiding aims of the two studies presented within this paper were substantive and methodological in nature, and were specifically to (a) examine support for Meyer and Allen's (1991) multidimensional conceptual model in sport relationships and teams, and (b) provide preliminary validity evidence for instruments that were designed to assess athletes' commitment perceptions in coach-athlete relationship and interdependent team contexts.…”