Collegiate Career Research Articles

The association of mentoring with psychosocial development among male athletes at termination of college career

Abstract Male athletes' and a matched group of nonathletes' occupational plans, identity and intimacy scores, and level of mentoring were assessed at the end of the college career. No significant between-group differences existed with regard to identity, intimacy, or occupational plan. In accordance with predictions. mentoring was positively related in multiple regression analyses to athletes' intimacy score, and a coach was the most frequent mentor of athletes. In partial support of predictions, athletes reported a greater frequency of mentoring than nonathletes when mentoring was nonempirically appraised but not when empirically assessed. Results contradict Nelson's (1983) hypothesis of an “athletic identity” while findings support Blann's (1985) contention that athletes are developmentally on par with non-athletes by the end of the collegiate career. Mentoring is concluded to be a potentially useful paradigm from which to examine the coach-athlete relationship.

Multiple-transfer students in a public urban university: Background characteristics and interinstitutional movements

Little research has been conducted on multiple-transfer students, those students who transfer more than once during their collegiate careers. In this study, background characteristics and previous interinstitutional movements of a sample of multiple transfers enrolled at a large, urban, public university were examined. These students moved along four different transfer paths before enrolling at the university, where they comprised one-fifth of new undergraduate enrollments. Their paths differed significantly on a number of demographic, institutional, and interaction variables. Overall, these students were academic achievers with high socioeconomic status backgrounds, who focused on academic quality and programs in choosing four-year colleges. Their tendency to transfer among large, inexpensive, public institutions has negative implications for the private sector of higher education.

A Retrospective Study of the Effect of an Athlete's Sudden Death on Teammates

This study investigated the psychological effects of a teammate's sudden death on the remaining team members at the end of their collegiate careers (4 years later). The football players ( N = 10) were interviewed and answered a series of open-ended questions asking them for their feelings, emotions, and attitudes since the death of their teammate. The data were drawn from verbatim transcriptions of the interviews and were inductively content analyzed. The findings indicated: a) initially similar responses from teammates (shock and disbelief); b) mixed reactions concerning the influence of the event on individual lives; c) deep emotions during the interviews; and d) a diversity of defense mechanisms utilized by young men to deal with traumatic life events.

Value Added: Measuring The Community College’s Effectiveness

This study proposes and applies a method of using the “value added” concept to assess community college effectiveness, especially on nontraditional programs and students. It reports findings of a case study where community college students began their collegiate careers with high-school rankings and standardized test scores substantially lower than those of first-year students at a highly selective university. However, upon transfer to that university, the community college students performed comparably with native university students.

Effects of physical training and competition on the iron status of female field hockey players.

Female collegiate field hockey players showed decreases in iron stores (as measured by serum ferritin) in each of 3 successive fall seasons studied. After the 1st season of regular play, a decrease (25-23 ng/ml was observed, but measurements after post-season tournament play for the 2nd and 3rd seasons showed significant (P less than 0.05) decreases of 37% (30-19 ng/ml) and 30% (24-17 ng/ml), respectively. The added stress of tournament play appeared to cause additional loss of reserve iron nearly as great as that experienced during early season training. After several years of play, serum ferritin levels in these athletes were frequently between 10 and 20 ng/ml, with the lowest levels occurring in 3rd- and 4th-year athletes. Those women who participated in all 3 years had progressively declining serum ferritin levels throughout their collegiate careers. Participation in collegiate field hockey jeopardizes body iron stores, and iron reserves tend to become progressively more depleted after successive seasons of competition.

Present practices in administering quality points in 172 American colleges and universities

Introduction.-Without attempting to go into an extensive history of the development of the practice of requiring quality points for graduation in American colleges and universities, it might be said that, at the present time, they are generally considered an instrument for measuring, in a general way, the quality of all work done by the student in his collegiate career. This recognition of quality of work done seems to be based on the assumption that in addition to a given quantity of work the student should have maintained reasonably acceptable qualitative standards. The discussion presented in the following paragraphs is a brief summary of an investigation made at the Mississippi State College for Women when this institution was considering some changes in its grading system. In order to obtain the data, a questionnaire was sent to each college in the United States having 500 or more students, and to many colleges that are recognized leaders in collegiate education even though their student bodies were not of the size mentioned. From this group of schools 172 responses were collected. Thirty-two of the total number of respondents reported that they made no use of quality points. This means, of course, that 140 of the 172 respondents use quality points in some form or other. Practices in Administering Quality Points.-Assuming that a student passes the required number of hours for graduation and amasses the required number of quality points, there are no problems to arise in the administration of quality points. Most problems concerned with the administration of this device arise when it is discovered that a given student has passed a sufficient number of hours for graduation, but has failed to do this work with sufficient skill to be awarded the required number of quality points. In considering the following summary statements it will be well to keep in mind that, in collecting the data, the following plan of quality points was suggested to the respondents: A grade of A received three quality points per credit hour; B, two quality points per credit hour; C, one quality point per credit hour; D, no quality points per credit

News and Views

IN his presidential address to the fifteenth Indian Science Congress, delivered at Calcutta on Jan. 2, Dr. J. L. Simonsen outlined the early history of the Congress, the first meeting of which was held in 1914. Reviewing the present position of education and research in India, he found matter for congratulation in the advance of the spirit of research in the Indian universities, but deprecated the fact that, with few exceptions, the degree standard has been considerably lowered during the last few years. He attributed this change to the recent University Acts, which have transferred the detailed control of courses of study and standards of examination from the professorial staffs to bodies of laymen. In order to overcome the difficulty of coping with large numbers of students who regard a collegiate career merely as a steppingstone to government appointments, Dr. Simonsen advocated the extension of Civil Service examinations to all grades in the clerical departments of government. Such a competitive system, although not free from defects, “would liberate the universities from their present thraldom and enable them to devote themselves to their true function, the advancement of learning.” IN the special section of his address, Dr. Simonsen directed attention to the importance of the study of natural plant and animal products. He instanced the work of Annett and his collaborators on the relationship of the alkaloidal content of poppy juice to the age of the plant and to external features, such as the nature and previous treatment of the soil. While commending work of this kind, he deplored the general neglect in India of the chemical study of natural products: “Is it presumptuous to suggest to the organic chemists of India that they should study intensively the unique wealth of material which lies at their door, and devote less time to the study of problems of theoretic interest only?” As an example of the value of collaboration between organic chemists and botanists, he alluded to the two grasses known as ‘Sofia’ and ‘Motia’; although these are both classified as Gymhopogon Martini, Stapf, the first yields the valuable palmarosa oil, while the second gives a comparatively valueless ginger-grass oil. Dr. Simonsen suggested that a detailed botanical and chemical examination of the many Indian Cymbopogon grasses would probably lead to results as interesting as those obtained by Baker and Smith in their work on the differentiation of closely related species of Eucalyptus, and that such work might throw light on possible relationships between the chemical constituents of a specific oil and characteristics of soil and climate.