Intimidation And Violence By Males In High School Athletics

Adolescence, Fall, 1999 by Edgar W. Shields, Jr.

METHOD

Participants

A questionnaire was designed for high school athletic directors. In North Carolina, they oversee programs for approximately 100,000 student athletes per year. Their observations offered the most readily accessible and broadest perspective of the problems of intimidation and violence. For practical and fiscal reasons, surveying athletic directors appeared to be a logical first step, with future data collection possibly broadened to include both coaches and athletes.

Instrument

The questionnaire was developed following a review of the literature on intimidation and violence in sports, as well as discussions with members of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association concerning their perception of these problems. Two drafts of the questionnaire were critiqued by professional colleagues at the high school and university levels. The final version asked athletic directors to respond to items relating to the problem areas of verbal intimidation, physical intimidation, and physical violence. These were defined, on the questionnaire, as follows: (1) verbal intimidation (VI)--taunting, mocking, ridiculing, "trash-talking," pointing, threatening physical violence, and so on, in an attempt to gain a psychological advantage over an opponent; (2) physical intimidation (PI)--pushing, shoving, bumping, or other physical contact short of striking, including unnecessarily rough play, in an attempt to gain a psychological advantage over an opponent; (3) physical violence (PV)--striking, punching, wrestling, and other forms of physical assault, with the intent to injure an opponent.

Athletic directors' perceptions of VI, PI, and PV were measured using two 4-point Likert scales. Responses to items designed to assess the magnitude of the problem from a broad, programwide perspective, and for each sport, included 4--very serious (VS) problem, 3--somewhat serious (SWS) problem, 2--very minor (VM) problem, and 1--not a problem (NP). Responses to items designed to identify possible antecedents included 4--strongly agree (SA), 3--agree (A), 2--disagree (D), and 1--strongly disagree (SD). Respondents also had the option of indicating no opinion/no response.

Questionnaires were mailed to all 325 high school athletic directors in the state of North Carolina. A cover letter explained the purpose of the questionnaire and solicited participation in the project. Confidentiality was assured, and they were specifically instructed not to put personal or school names anywhere on the questionnaire.

Analysis

Frequency distributions were calculated for each item. Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to determine which, if any, antecedent variables formed coherent, relatively independent subsets. This was followed by multiple regression and forward stepwise multiple regression analyses to assess the relationship between antecedent components and the magnitude of VI, PI, and PV across all sports and for specific sports.

RESULTS

Usable questionnaires were returned by 148 (46%) high school athletic directors. Frequency distributions are presented in Tables 1, 2, and 3.