Exploratory Factor Analysis of the Student-Athlete Career Situation Inventory (SACSI)

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Exploratory Factor Analysis of the
Student-Athlete Career Situation Inventory (SACSI)

• Scott D. Sandstedt, Richard H. Cox, Starla Ivey,
  Matthew P. Martens, Gant Ward, S. Nicole Webber,
  Steve Portenga, University of Missouri, Columbia,
  MO 65202

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Introduction
1. Transition from sport can be a very traumatic
experience for todays collegiate
student-athlete. The centrality of sport in
their social, personal, financial, recreational,
and vocational lives may make retirement from
sports participation more problematic than for
traditional workers (Ballie, 1993). 2. Few
collegiate athletes make sufficient plans to
prepare for career termination and may struggle
with their transition from the role of athlete to
non-athlete (Baillie, 1993 Mihovilovic, 1968).
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Introduction

• 3. Blann (1985) found that first and second-year
  male student-athletes from a sample of Division I
  and Division III schools had career plans that
  were not as well formulated as those of matched
  non-athletes.
• 4. Petipas, Danish, McKelvain, and Murphy (1990)
  suggest that many athletes feel that investing
  effort in the career development process would
  detract from their sport performance.
• 5. With all of the intrinsic benefits of sport
  participation, in addition to the time and energy
  demands of a student-athletes athletic
  environment (Martens Lee, 1998 Petitpas
  Champagne, 1988 Sowa Gressard, 1983), it is
  conceivable to understand why career exploration
  and planning may not be a top priority for many
  of todays student-athletes.

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Introduction

• 6. Despite such an awareness of the inadequacies
  concerning the level of career preparation for
  student-athletes, there have been very few
  studies where investigators have empirically
  investigated the attitudes, beliefs, and
  interests of student-athletes as they relate to
  vocational development and preparation.
• 7. Part of the reason for such a deficiency is
  due to the nonexistence of a sufficient
  instrument to reliably measure career development
  and preparation specific to student-athletes.

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Introduction

• 8. Researchers have utilized several inventories
  to measure athletes vocational development
  including the Career Maturity Inventory (CMI
  Kennedy Dimick, 1987), and the Career
  Development Inventory (CDI Smallman Sowa,
  1996).
• 9. However, Heppner (2000) asserts that many of
  the existing measures of career development,
  maturity, transition, etc. are normed on
  populations that may not possess many of the same
  barriers to career development that are inherent
  within other specific populations or cultures,
  i.e. time and energy demands experienced by
  collegiate student-athletes.

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Purpose

• The purpose of this study is to establish the
  psychometric properties of an appropriate measure
  of the career situation of student-athletes using
  reliability and exploratory factor analyses.
• By developing a psychometrically sound instrument
  that measures the career related attitudes,
  beliefs, and interests of student-athletes,
  professionals within a student-athletes sport
  environment will be able to develop more
  effective educational and counseling intervention
  strategies.

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Definition of Construct

• Career situation specific to student-athletes is
  defined as the extent of ones career development
  and preparation characterized by the
  sophistication of ones vocational attitudes,
  beliefs, and interests that may be influenced by
  athletic participation in a university setting.

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Scale Definition

• The Student-Athlete Career Situation Inventory
  (SACSI) is designed to measure the attitudes,
  beliefs, and interests associated with career
  outlook and preparation within a population of
  collegiate student-athletes while considering the
  developmental barriers to vocational development
  resulting from sport participation and the
  university athletic environment.

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Recruitment of Participants

• 204 student-athletes from a large mid-western
  Division I university participated in the study.
• The investigators approached coaches from 17
  sports and asked for their permission to solicit
  the voluntary participation of their athletes.
• After receiving permission, the investigators
  presented each athlete with a brief overview of
  the study and ask for their voluntary
  participation.
• The most salient characteristics of each subject
  is his/her status as a student-athlete and being
  of college age. All other characteristics had
  equal potential for representation as the
  investigators did not control for gender, race,
  socio-economic status, or class standing when
  recruiting subjects.

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Scale Development

• Five graduate students from a large mid-western
  university worked collaboratively to create the
  scale items by using
• pre-existing measures as models
• related literature regarding student-athlete
  career development
• awareness of the characteristics of sport
  participation in a university setting

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Scale Development

• 3. From a larger cumulative list of items,
  questions were selected to be included on a final
  list of 41 items based on each questions
  estimated ability to adequately measure the
  construct of student-athlete career situation as
  a whole, as agreed upon by each student and their
  research advisor.
• 4. Students revised each item on the final list
  to ensure the consistency of item presentation
  (e.g. length and wording) and to limit the
  potential for responses based on social
  desirability. Each student also incorporated
  suggestions for reverse graded items in an effort
  to encourage response validity.
• 5. In addition to item generation, the graduate
  students worked collaboratively to develop
  appropriate anchors for item responses.

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Data Analysis

• 1. To ensure that the values are within the
  expected range and that no items are omitted,
  minimum and maximum values for each variable were
  calculated.
• 2. To analyze the distribution of responses
  means, standard deviations, and ranges were
  computed for each variable.
• 3. Exploratory factor analysis was used to
  determine the dimensional structure of the items
  chosen to assess the career related attitudes,
  beliefs, and interests of student-athletes.
  Principal axis factoring was used to extract the
  factors followed by an oblique promax rotations
  to identify stable factor loadings for each item.

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Data Analysis

• 4. A scree plot was used to help determine which
  factors would be retained for rotation.
  Accordingly, identifiable factors were required
  to have eigenvalues greater than 1. In
  interpreting the rotated factor pattern, an item
  was acknowledged to load on a given factor if the
  factor loading was .40 or greater for a potential
  factor.
• 5. Coefficient alpha was calculated for both the
  SACSI as a whole and any sub-scales that
  correspond with identifiable factors to assess
  the internal consistency of the SACSI.

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Discussion

• Results indicate a five-factor solution that
  accounts for 44 of the total variance.
• Based on each factors item content, the
  following themes were assigned
• Factor 1 Perceptions of Career
  Development/Exploration
• Factor 2 Career vs. Sport Identity
• Factor 3 Locus of Control
• Factor 4 Barriers to Career Development
• Factor 5 Sport to Work Relationship

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Discussion

• Initial analyses reveal the multidimensional
  nature of student-athlete career development
• Although student-athletes may have an appropriate
  awareness of career-development, barriers such as
  time management, role conflict, and external
  influences have a salient impact on fostering
  such development.
• Accordingly, student-athletes recognize the
  relationship between sport-related and
  work-related skills.

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Limitations and Considerations for Future Research

• The fact that only one university was utilized in
  the investigation warrants caution when
  generalizing results.
• Future confirmatory analyses are needed to
  further establish the factor structure of the
  SACSI using a heterogeneous sample.
• Accordingly, further validity analyses are
  necessary to promote the efficacious use of the
  SACSI.