Examining Role Clarity\u27s Effects in Collegiate Baseball Player Motivation

Baseball is a team sport consisting of individual players working interdependently and fulfilling specific roles to achieve team goals. However, the roles that players are asked to fill may not be clearly understood by the players. It may be unclear to the players what is expected of them in their role, the behavior necessary to fulfill their responsibilities, how they will be evaluated in their role, or what consequences will follow fulfilling or failing their responsibilities. In these cases, the ambiguity over one’s role may lead to negative outcomes at the individual level. Following self-determination theory, this study examines how role ambiguity may affect an individual’s perceptions of cohesion within the team in both task and social domains. Furthermore, this study examines how role ambiguity might affect motivation both directly as well as indirectly through perceptions of social and task cohesion. This presentation summarizes an initial pilot study based on impressions of current and former college and high school baseball players collected outside of the baseball season. More information from current collegiate baseball players within an active season is required to fully test the hypotheses