The influence of institutional success in intercollegiate athletics on college choice: An organizational identity theory-based study of students' enrollment decisions.

This study was executed to develop a better understanding of how, why, and to what degree institutional success in intercollegiate athletics influences students' images of an institution and their subsequent decisions to enroll at the institution. I hypothesized that it may be possible to link institutional success in intercollegiate athletics and students' college enrollment decisions by examining the mediational effects of sport-related organizational identity in the college choice process. My idea was sparked by evidence in the college choice literature that intercollegiate athletic success influences institutional image and that institutional image influences students' enrollment choices. Thus, I hypothesized that institutional image may be serving as a mediator between success in big-time intercollegiate athletics and enrollment choice. Findings from the study were based on Web-based survey responses provided by a representative sample of newly enrolled first-year students at the University of Michigan (n = 536). Survey responses were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical methods, including path analyses. Results from this study showed that a sizeable number of students, particularly non-residents, considered an institution's tradition of success in sport to be a relatively important factor in their college enrollment decisions. Furthermore, students' attributions of importance to school spirit as an institutional characteristic were important indicators of their level of sport-related identification with an institution of higher education. And in turn, students' levels of sport-related organizational identity were significantly predictive of the levels of influence they attributed to institutional success in intercollegiate athletics as a factor in their college enrollment decisions. With the application of organizational identity theory, insight was provided into why institutional success in college sport was influential in students' college enrollment decisions. The findings suggested that for certain students, especially non-residents, sport-related school spirit provided the means (i.e., affiliation with a university they perceived as being unique and prestigious) with which they could justify their college choices relative to the choices available to peers, consequently contributing positively to their self-esteem.PhDEducationHigher educationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/131244/2/3057893.pd