Marital and Other Primary Dyadic Relationships of Intercollegiate Athletics Administrators

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate marital and other primary dyadic relationships of intercollegiate athletics administrators at the 106 NCAA Division IA institutions (N = 1072). The Spanier Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976, 1989) was used to assess perceptions of the quality of dyadic relationships among administrators who were either married or in unmarried, cohabiting partnerships (n = 402). Application of independent samples t tests, with alpha adjusted from .05 to .003 by Bonferroni's contrasting procedure, revealed that (a) there was a significant difference between Dyadic Cohesion scores of athletics administrators and the married norm group (p < .001), and (b) female athletics administrators produced significantly higher scores in Dyadic Cohesion than did male athletics administrators (p < .003). Future research should include an investigation of dyadic adjustment of the mates/partners of intercollegiate athletics administrators to facilitate comparisons of the two perceptions of the relationship.