Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Exploring The Impact Of Coaches’ Emotional Abuse On Intercollegiate Student-Athletes’ Experiences, Katherine N. Alexander, Kat V. Adams, Travis E. Dorsch

Human Development and Family Studies Student Research

Despite widespread anecdotal accounts of coaches’ emotional abuse in intercollegiate sports, empirical literature is lacking. To address this gap, the present exploratory study was designed to explore how former intercollegiate student-athletes interpreted experiences of emotionally abusive coaching. Former female NCAA and NJCAA student-athletes (N = 14; M_age = 25.3 years) took part in semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Data were interpreted using a constructivist grounded theory approach. The final product of the research was a three-stage grounded theory explaining how former student-athletes interpret their experiences of emotional abuse over time organized into sections on antecedents to abuse, experiences and actions …