Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

John W. Hill

Second Advisor

Kay A. Keiser

Third Advisor

Neal F. Grandgenett

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the effects of a school sponsored invitational eight-week summer strength and conditioning program on the attitudes and agility of high school girl volleyball players who participated in the school sponsored invitational eight-week summer strength and conditioning program and co-occurring sports and/or club sports compared to the attitudes and agility of high school girl volleyball players who specialize in volleyball and participated in the school sponsored invitational eight-week summer strength and conditioning program alone. This exploratory study focused on volleyball players who attended the same high school and who were members of the same volleyball program. The data suggest that co-occurring sports and/or club sports and volleyball alone players source of motivation was internal, well established, and that self-reported pretest-posttest mean differences indicated subscale stability, not easily changed by the new challenges presented during the school sponsored invitational eight-week summer strength and conditioning program. Furthermore, players in both groups reported themselves as moderately externally motivated but not at all amotivated. No posttest-posttest between group differences was observed. Finally, it may be said that the co-occurring sports and/or club sports players and volleyball alone players had robust agility skills for approach jump reach, block jump reach, basketball throw, and mile run before they began participation in the school sponsored invitational eight-week summer strength and conditioning program and that these scores remained statistically unchanged following participation in the school sponsored invitational eight-week summer strength and conditioning program. However, agility run scores showed statistically significant improvement following the new challenges presented during the school sponsored invitational eight-week summer strength and conditioning program. Posttest-posttest findings suggest near equipoise for the agility outcomes of both groups of players. Overall, the findings of this study indicated that the high school girl volleyball players' participation in co-occurring sports and/or club sports during the off-season and summer resulted in positive outcomes with no comparable negative consequences and multiple-sport participation is, therefore, deemed to be fully compatible with and contributory to a continued positive motivational outlook and conditioned athletic ability successful life course for these varsity athletes.

Comments

Department formerly called Educational Administration and Supervision.

A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College of the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Education In Educational Administration.

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