The Effects of Sport Specialization on High School Volleyball Players

Purpose

Previous research (Daling, 2003; Hansen, 1987; Hill, 1988; Jaworski, 2000) has examined whether sport specialization enhances a high school athlete's chances of receiving a collegiate athletic scholarship and reported conflicting results. Also, most of the research has focused primarily on the opinions of coaches and athletic directors, whose perceptions may or may not be accurate. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of sport specialization on high school volleyball players in a metropolitan area of the Midwest.

Methods

Participants for this study were composed of 116 graduating senior high school club volleyball players. Of the total of 116 athletes surveyed, 55.2% were athletes specializing in volleyball and 44.8% were multiple-sport athletes. The survey consisted of 30 items pertaining to athletic background, reasons for sport specialization, and overuse injury history and burnout.

Analysis/Results

Findings of this study showed that 63.8% (n = 74) received scholarships to play volleyball at the NCAA Division I or Division II level. Results of chi-square analysis indicated that there were no significant difference in receiving collegiate athletic scholarships between specialized athletes and multiple-sport athletes, x2(1, N =74) = 2.65, p =.10. However, chi-square analysis for receiving scholarships from the NCAA Division I universities confirmed that the specialized athletes received significantly more scholarships than did multiple-sport athletes, x2(1, N = 40) = 6.40, p = 01. Furthermore, no significant differences in the occurrence of burnout and overuse injury were found between specialized athletes and multiple-sport athletes. Finally, analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that there were significant differences among the sources of pressure to specialize in volleyball, F (4, 315) = 7.03, p = .01. Further analysis using Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference Post Hoc Test revealed that the most significant sources of pressure for sport specialization came from the athletes' parents and their club volleyball coaches.

Conclusions

The findings of this study suggested that sport specialization did not enhance high school volleyball players' chances of receiving collegiate athletic scholarships. However, the findings provided some support for sport specialization that may enhance their chances of receiving collegiate athletic scholarships at the Division I level. Therefore, future research is recommended to replicate this study with a larger number of student-athletes.