How Are Student Athletes Perceiving Female Coaches

This study was designed to assess the perceptions that student athletes have of female coaches and relate these perceptions to the establish factors within the literature review. Research has suggested possible explanations for the decline of females coaching female sports, however, the focus has not been on the extreme low number of women coaching male sports. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to gain an understanding as to why females are not coaching male sports. A cross sectional survey will be designed and sent out to Male and female student athletes within the NCAA Division III Empire 8 conference. The survey contained open and closed questions, and data was evaluated through the use of the role congruity theory. Descriptive and a chi square analysis was ran to determine if two or more independent variables are related to the dependent variable. A total of 314 participants were used for the completion of this study. The results of this study display that athletes may not perceive female coaches in a negative manor. The findings both prove and disprove previous research