Literature Review Blog #3

Citation:

Kamusoko, Sibongile D., Ed.D, and Cynthia Lee A. Pemberton, Ed. D. "Student-Athlete 

Wellbeing and Persistence: An In-depth Look at Student-Athlete Perceptions." Student-Athlete Wellbeing 1 (2012): n. pag. ERIC [OCLC]. Web. 26 Oct. 2015. <http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED528482.pdf>.

Summary:
The study conducted by Kamusoko focuses on student-athletes "perceptions of well-being, delimited to satisfaction regarding Athletic Department Policies and Practices, Educational Characteristics, Institutional Facilities and Services, and intent to academically persist."  The research conducted involved seven student-athletes, 5 male and 2 female.  Of the 7, 4 were team-sports while the other 3 were individual sports.  The study found four underlying themes that the student athletes 1) recognized their role, responsibilities, and agency in terms of their academic progress and relationships with faculty; 2) acknowledged reliance on the Athletic Department in terms of assistance in understanding and complying with NCAA rules, regulations, and eligibility requirements; 3) were aware of and made at least limited use of institution-based academic content support services, and 4) saw and valued themselves as students and student-athletes.

Author:
Sibongile D. Kamusoko and Cynthia Lee Pemberton, both were graduates of Idaho University.  Pemberton had publishes 2 books, and 31 papers.  Kamusoko is now a PE Adjunct Instructor at Idaho University and has published multiple papers as well.

Key Terms/Quotes
"Over time the NCAA developed from an exclusively men’s
sport organization concerned with establishing rules to minimize violent behavior, to a multi
division (D-I, D-II, and D-III) sport governance organization that has assumed fiscal
management, certification, and administrative control of most college sports (Maxcy, 2004).
Today, the NCAA describes itself as being “…[f]ounded more than one hundred years ago as a
way to protect student-athletes…[implementing] that principle with increased emphasis on both
athletics and academic excellence”"

"The problems student-athletes faced continued to escalate over the next two and a half
decades leading to the formation of a 1952 Presidential Committee by the American Council of
Education (ACE) (Thelin, 1994). This committee investigated and reported on ethics in
collegiate sport. More recently, the 1999 and the 2001 Knight Foundation Commission on
Intercollegiate Athletics (KFCIA) published reports that revealed and substantiated ongoing
conflicts between academic and athletic goals, such as admission practices for intercollegiate
athletes being at odds with institutional education goals"


" At each stage of reform the NCAA hoped that by better aligning the standards used to
admit student-athletes with those used by the institution for non-athletes, when student-athletes
arrived on a college campus they would be better able to meet athletic and academic demands.
This ideal was consistent with the 1991 KFCIA report that stated, “student-athletes will be
students as well as athletes” (p. 62). Despite NCAA legislative measures and requirements,
recent literature confirms that student-athletes still confront conflicting roles associated with
education and athletics (Hyatt, 2003; Nordeen, 2005; Suggs, 2003; Suggs, 2005; Wolverton,
2008). In addition, cases of academic fraud, in the form of altering athlete transcripts, acceptance
of lower admission standards, awarding grades for classes that athletes had not attended,
dishonesty, unethical practices, use of improper incentives from alumni, smear campaigns and
attacking programs at other institutions persist (Ferris, et al., 2004; Kelo, 2005; KFCIA, 1991,
2001, 2010; Maxcy, 2004; Thelin, 2004; Zimbalist, 1999)."


Value:
This source will be incredibly valuable for my research topic as it analyzes the structure of college sports and how the NCAA and other organizations have attempted to create strict guidelines on emphasizing the "student" aspect of a student-athlete.  There are some quality information and statistics presented in this paper that I can use to analyze a student-athlete's motivation and how it relates to their academic and athletic roles at a university.  By using the guidelines and regulations enforced by the institutions themselves, as well as the NCAA, it will be more simple to draw a picture of how the mind of a student-athlete works.