Vicarious Connection of Athletics Into University Identification, Adjustment of Students

Purpose

A pertinent reason for establishing a quality connection between the college or university and its students lies in an institution's ability to retain its students, as persistence rates have become a salient assessment of academic quality. Despite the importance, persistence rates of undergraduates remain highly scrutinized, with freshmen attrition accounting for nearly half of the overall total (Ferguson, 1990; Tinto, 1993). Research has shown many variables in connection with persistence including clubs, recreation center use, or athletics (e.g. Belch, Gebel, & Maas, 2001; Boyer, 1987; Kuh, Schuh, Whitt, & Associates, 1991; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). Thus, the impact of the environment and the campus community continues to maintain relevance in today's institutions of higher education. Still, while the use of athletics as a connector to campus community has shown significant potential (Clopton, 2008), little research has explored the connection between the general student body, using athletics as an avenue, into the campus community.

Methods

The current study, then, sought to examine the extent to which students' perceived vicarious achievement through their school's athletics teams the impact that the vicarious achievement had upon the extent to which the students identified with the overall university and successfully adjusted into the campus community. In the fall of 2007, responses from undergraduate students (N=1702, response rate of 35.5%) across 41 NCAA BCS institutions were collected around the SACQ (Baker & Siryk, 1989), CSES (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992), and VIC (Funk, Mahony, & Ridinger, 2002) scales. To examine for the predictability of the vicarious connection of students to their adjustment and university identity totals, two separate hierarchical regression analyses were conducted.

Analysis/Results

The initial regression revealed a significant relationship between the level of a student's vicarious achievement through athletics and the resultant overall adjustment into the university community (R²Δ=.04, β=.21, p's<.001). Notably, the students' gender, race, state residency, Greek affiliation, and gpa all maintained significance in the analyses. In the latter regression, the students' vicarious achievement showed a strong predictability of university identity (R²Δ=.16, β=.41, p's<.001). Interestingly, gender and gpa were the only other variables to contribute to one's university identity.

Conclusions

Results seem to indicate that a student's connection to the university through vicarious athletic achievement does possess potential in establishing a student-university relationship for which student affairs professionals desire. Further, the data do appear to lend some credence to myriad literature that refer to athletics' ability to enhance the campus climate (e.g. Toma, 2004).