The Repository @ St. Cloud State

Open Access Knowledge and Scholarship

Date of Award

12-2009

Culminating Project Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Sports Management: M.S.

Department

Kinesiology

College

School of Health and Human Services

First Advisor

David Bacharach

Second Advisor

Susan Becker

Third Advisor

William Hudson

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

Keywords and Subject Headings

Sports Management, Kinesiology, Players, Parenting Styles, Hockey

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the perceived parenting styles of athletes in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA). Four parenting styles were identified in previous studies, authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and neglecting.

Fifteen teams and over 250 athletes were surveyed. Permission was obtained from the head coach of each of the men's and women's team. The survey was sent to a full time staff person for each team that the researcher had contacted to assure the surveys would be completed. The survey was given during each team's spring training and then returned in a pre-paid envelop.

Descriptive statistics were used in this study to differentiate between the male and female hockey players in this study as well as determining the parenting style they perceived they had growing up. The results in this study showed no difference between men and women in regards to what parenting style they perceived they had growing up; therefore, all WCHA Division I hockey players perceive preferred parenting style similarly. WCHA Division I hockey players perceive the preferred parenting style to be Authoritative where the parent(s) are supportive, but do not pressure their child to perform or participate. They also perceive the least preferred parenting style to be Neglecting where the parent(s) take little or no interest in their activity. More research would need to be done to see how the effects of parenting style correlate to a child's success as a college level athlete.

Comments/Acknowledgements

I would like to extend a special thanks to Dr. David Bacharach for his guidance patience and expertise throughout this study. I could not have done it without him. I also would like to thank Dr. Bill Hudson and Dr. Sue Becker for their assistance in making this project a success.

I would like to thank all of the coaches and staffs of the teams in the WCHA for their help in completing this survey and allowing their athletes to participate.

Finally I would like to thank my family, my wife Karla for all her support through the process of finishing this study as well as being a "coach's wife", and my two daughters Delaney and Maleah for always smiling.

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