Term of Award

Spring 2009

Degree Name

Master of Science in Kinesiology (M.S.)

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Health and Kinesiology

Committee Chair

Daniel R. Czech

Committee Member 1

Jonathan Metzler

Committee Member 2

Samuel Todd

Committee Member 3

Trey Burdette

Abstract

The team captain is a highly recognizable position held in collegiate athletics. Loughead et al. (2006) suggests the team captain represents the formal peer leader in athletics. Although this may be the case, only one study was found which qualitatively investigated this position in male ice hockey (Dupois et al. 2006). Moran and Weiss (2005) highlighted differences in male versus female peer leadership in sport. A gap in the current sport psychology literature exists in the critical evaluation of both male and female, and team and individual peer sport leadership, from the first-person perspective. The purpose of this study was to critically examine the experience of the collegiate team captain as well as the perceived roles of the individual. Two open-ended questions were presented to individuals representing four area's of collegiate competition: male team sport captains, male individual sport captains, female team sport captains, and female individual sport captains. Participant interviews revealed an overall thematic structure of: A Good and Fun Experience, Responsibilities, and Relationships. Several subthemes from each of these categories emerged in the data, as well as additional subthemes when separating the co-participants into their appropriate gender groups.

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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