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Going for gold| A study of urban secondary school athletic health care

<p> The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the influence of the athletic health care team on urban secondary school student-athlete physical health, academic engagement, and academic success. Limited and inconsistent research had been identified that linked student-athlete physical health to academic engagement and success at the time of research. In question is how the presence of an athletic health care team influenced student-athlete health, academic engagement, and academic success. A qualitative intrinsic case study using a face-to-face responsive interview model was deployed for data collection. The population was identified as all student-athletes, coaches, and parents/guardians involved with one urban secondary school district athletic program. Five male student-athletes, two male and one female parent, and three male coaches voluntarily participated in the research study. Data analysis occurred through an iterative process beginning with manual transcription of audio recordings into a Microsoft Word document that was uploaded into the NVIVO 11 computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software for organizing further coding and theme development. A conceptually clustered matrix was further used for data analysis to help identify themes among student-athletes, their parents, and coaches to triangulate responses. The athletic health care team in this research study was found to directly influence student-athlete health, have a minimal influence on academic engagement, but have indirect influence on academic success according to participants. The athletic trainer was the key athletic health care team member contributing to student-athlete physical health, while coach was identified as most dominant figure on academic engagement, with coaches and parents being most powerful on academic success. Additional research is needed to fully understand the collaboration between athletic health services and general health services for the secondary school student-athlete. The variability between health care programing offers an opportunity for standardization that can be replicated and then studied across different settings, such as rural versus urban, or among diverse socioeconomic groups. Future research collaboration between health care and education is also needed specifically in the area of athletic health care team implementation at the secondary school level to fully understand the positive educational impacts that may be achieved. Extending health services beyond than the traditional student and into the extracurricular environment may be a powerful tool that offers additional academic engagement and success opportunities.</p><p>

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10287999
Date05 August 2017
CreatorsAdler, Phillip J.
PublisherCapella University
Source SetsProQuest.com
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typethesis

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