| The purpose of this study was to investigate expectations of collegiate head coaches about sport psychology consulting. There were two null hypotheses in this study: first, there will be no difference in expectations of sport psychology consulting between male and female collegiate head coaches of NCAA Division I, II, and III athletic programs; second, there will be no difference in expectations of sport psychology consulting between head coaches of male and female athletic programs at Division I, II, and III level. Items from the Expectations About Sport Psychology Consulting (EASPC) questionnaire (Martin et al., 2001) were revised to reflect a head coaches' perspective. The revised instrument, Coaches' Expectations About Sport Psychology Consulting (CESPC) questionnaire, was administered to 404 collegiate head coaches (244 male coaches and 160 female coaches) of both male and female team sports (248 female teams and 156 male teams) from NCAA Division I, II, and III athletic teams. Results of a 2 (Gender of the Sport) X 3 (NCAA Level of Competition) MANOVA indicated a significant main effect for gender of the sport. Univariate ANOVAs indicated a significant effect for personal commitment. In addition, results of the 2 (Gender of the Coach) X 3 (NCAA Level of Competition) MANOVA indicated a significant main effect for gender of the head coach. Univariate ANOVAs indicated a significant effect for personal commitment. Subsequent univariate ANOVAs also revealed a significant interaction between the level of sport (e.g., NCAA Division I, Division II, and Division III) and gender with respect to SPC expertise. Results indicated that the CESPC instrument might be a valuable tool for determining head coaches' expectations about sport psychology consulting. Interpretations of the results for each hypothesis are included and implications for sport psychology consultants are discussed based on these findings. Finally, study limitations are identified and suggestions for future research are made. |
