A recruiting profile of student-athlete college choice factors for entering freshmen in the NAIA Transouth Conference /

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the most important college choice factors for entering freshmen student-athletes at 8 of 9 small, private schools in the NAIA TranSouth Conference and to develop recruiting profiles for the TranSouth Conference and each of the 8 participating institutions. The researcher utilized the Student-Athlete College Choice Profile (Gabert, Hale, & Montalvo, 1999) to collect data from 249 entering freshmen student-athletes during the first week of the 2003 fall semester. The Student-Athlete College Choice Profile consisted of 23 college choice factors and required each participant to rate the factors on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from very important to not important. The results were analyzed using SPSS 11.5 software to generate descriptive statistics including rank, means, and standard deviations. Recruiting profiles for the TranSouth Conference, each of the 8 participating institutions, and each of the 5 independent variables were created. Multivariate analyses of variance were computed to measure differences for the 23 college choice factors based on the 5 independent variables of gender (2-group), sport choice (2-group), scholarship level (3-group), residency status (2-group), and ethnicity (3-group).

The results indicated that the head coach relationship and opportunity to play were the two most important college choice factors for entering freshmen student-athletes in the NAIA TranSouth Conference. A mixture of athletic and academic factors made up the top quartile (1 to 6) of most important factors. Factors related to the campus environment and the influence of others did not play an important role in the college choice process. Significant differences (p less than .05) were found for the independent variables of gender, sport choice, residency status, and ethnicity. The majority of significantly different factors occurred on factors outside of the top quartile of most important factors for each of the independent variables.

Athletic recruiters and enrollment managers may utilize the customized recruiting profiles created in this study as they develop recruiting strategies to attract student-athletes to their institutions. The results indicate that multiple recruiting strategies should be utilized when recruiting NAIA TranSouth Conference student-athletes.