The purpose of this project was to review the literature associated with the social and psychological adjustments freshmen and transfer intercollegiate athletes face as they transition into college and create a mandatory course to assist them through their transition into California Polytechnic State University. This project led to the creation of an academic course that will be offered at California Polytechnic State University in the near future. This course could serve as an impetus for coaches, faculty, and administrators at other universities to develop similar courses, or reevaluate established course offerings, and to develop follow-up course training for intercollegiate athletes that will contribute to their positive growth throughout the course of their college careers.

ABSTRACT TRANSFORMATIONAL AND TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTICS OF INTERCOLLAGIATE ATHLETES AND NON-ATHLETES M.S.Physical Education and Sports Supervisor: Assoc.Prof.Dr.Settar KO&Ccedil / AK June 2010, 64 Pages The main purpose of this study was to examine the transformational and transactional leadership characteristics of intercollegiate athletes and non athletes. The second purpose was to compare transformational and transactional leadership characteristics in athletes and non-athletes. In this study, 152 subjects were selected from seven different universities. Data was collected through Turkish version of Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) - Leader Form (Form 5X-Short). Quantitative statistical analyses using SPSS confirmed the study&#039 / s first and second hypothesis through and independent samples t-test that the intercollegiate athletes scored statistically higher on the MLQ (Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire) 5X-Short than the non-athlete university students. MLQ 5X-Short scores were subjected to t-test using the athlete2s gender, sport activity, team membership, weekly exercise days, exercise in yearly based time. The test variables were transformational and transactional leadership behaviors and subscales of them, the grouping variables were intercollegiate athletes and non-athletes. Two out of three Leadership behaviors were statistically significant when comparing intercollegiate athletes and non athletes.