Investigating the Predictive Relationship Between Sportsmanship
INVESTIGATING THE PREDICTIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPORTSMANSHIP AND CLASS, AGE, TYPE OF SPORT, AND GENDER AT THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY by Daniel J. Furlong Liberty University A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Education Liberty University 2021 2 INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPORTSMANSHIP AND CLASS, AGE, TYPE OF SPORT, AND GENDER, AT THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY By Daniel J. Furlong A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Education Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA 2021 APPROVED BY: Ellen Lowrie Black, Ed.D., Committee Chair Kurt Y. Michael, Ph. D., Committee Member 3 ABSTRACT Traditionally, military leaders accentuate military skill development over developing the moral character of soldiers. However, researchers have made recommendations to investigate components of sportsmanship with the intent to align better with the goals of other development programs that seek to promote character. The purpose of this quantitative, correlational design study was to use a multiple linear regression on an archival data set of Character in Sport Index scores to determine if the linear combination of the variables class, age, type of sport, and gender have predictive significance for Character in Sport Index scores. Subjects included 8,701 cadets between the ages of 17 and 27 years old attending the United States Military Academy (USMA) during the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 academic years. The findings found that the variables class, age, gender, and type of sport play a statistically significant predictive role in terms of Character in Sport Index scores. Therefore, future discussion may be justified as to investigating other avenues involved in sports education to accomplish assessing traditional institutional methods of character development to identify stronger predictive variables.
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