Background/Purpose
The purpose of the present research was to investigate secondary school counselors' perceptions of counseling services for student-athletes who plan to transition to colleges or universities.
Method
The proposed research used a qualitative, Grounded Theory approach. Ten secondary school counselors were interviewed using a standard, open-ended format (Patton, 1990) Counselors were selected through typical case sampling, a form a purposeful sampling. Selection of counselors was based on attaining maximum variation of the sample, through items such as age, gender, years of experience, and ethnicity. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire and took part in an interview examining their perceptions of services offered to student-athletes. To increase credibility and trustworthiness, a reflective journal, a panel of experts, member checks and peer debriefing and triangulation were used.
Analysis/Results
Data analysis for this study involved systematically organizing responses from each interview. This required several steps. First, the audiotapes from interviews were transcribed. The goal of transcribing data was to organize information so the researcher could review it to identify emerging patterns and themes. Analytic coding was used to classify and categorize the data. Additionally, each sentence was analyzed for connections to themes. Data were divided according to the relevance of each theme. Data that did not readily fit a theme was set aside for future consideration. Sentences that reflected central themes were labeled. To explore perceptions from various standpoints (triangulation), the researcher also analyzed a personal journal, the demographic questionnaire, and field notes for contextual information. Codes and categories were aligned with themes and the purpose of the literature, and were related back to the research question.
Conclusions
The findings of this study revealed that the sample of high school counselors who participated perceived a discrepancy in theory versus practice as related to the realities of services offered to student-athletes. Participants indicated that when student-athletes are provided with services, such as transitional programs (to facilitate the move from high school to college) or career counseling, it is an exception rather than common practice. Literature has demonstrated a need for differentiated counseling for student-athletes based on their unique challenges (Baily, 1993; Goldberg & Chandler, 1995; Kirk & Kirk, 1993). Although the participants in this study described a need for differentiated services for student-athletes based on theory and counseling models, they perceived that such initiatives provided to student-athletes were exceptions to their general practice.