Psychological differences between Division I and Division II African American athletes

The obstacles facing African American athletes in college extend from the absence of discipline to the degree of learned hopelessness and include separation anxiety and location adaptability. This dissertation focuses on the development and validation of an immediately usable culturally sensitive African American Athlete Survey instrument that can be used to guide academic and organizational activities as well as counseling. Once the instrument is used to develop a behavioral profile, activities can be coordinated more appropriately, and psychological counseling can address behavioral difficulties.; Relying on the published literature the expressed views of African American Athletes, and the experiences and special knowledge of the investigator, a needs analysis was carried out to simultaneously generate an internal structure of analyses of problems and a menu of services that could both proactively protect and retroactively provide remediation. The 52 items selected were organized into an internal structure of domains and themes, and named the Boswell African American Athlete survey (BAAAS). The BAAS was then evaluated for validity.; Two hundred and sixty-four African American male athletes comprise the sample population (n=264). Of this number, one hundred and ten (110) are drawn from NCAA Division I schools, and one hundred and fifty-four (154) are drawn from Division II. The sample data exhibits a statistically significant disparity between the two Divisions on three Domains: Domain I Academic Achievement, Domain II Socio Psychological development, and Domain III athletic psychological performance/motivation; on ten themes: (1) discipline, (2) motivation, (3) resourcefulness, (4) goal-setting (short-term and long-term), (5) fear motivation, (6) fear management, (7) locus of control, (8) separation anxiety, (9) location adaptability, and (10) areas of academic interest; and on 50 of 52 questions, suggesting that there was construct and content validity to a system of domains and themes imbedded in the research instrument. It was shown how this instrument could be used to generate an individual academic profile that could be used to address or remedy the problems described by experts, the published literature, and participants during the instrument development. Future research opportunities were addressed.; Keywords. African American athletes, Sports psychology, Testing, Surveys, Counseling...