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Background: Every year, college coaching staffs spend numerous hours tracking and recruiting prospective student-athletes. Recruitment and retention of student-athletes are among the most important tasks of a college coach. The National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) in 2017 reported that there were 36,411 male student-athletes and 22,785 female student-athletes in 26 sports. Surprisingly, only two studies have been conducted with this population regarding the recruitment process. This knowledge gap prevents coaches from building a marketing plan that will help them successfully recruit and retain student-athletes. Purpose: This study examined the college selection process and identified the most important factors influencing NJCAA student-athletes in the college selection process. Methods: An invitation letter was sent to athletic directors of NJCAA institutions together with the College Selection Process Scale (CSPS). Athletic directors invited their student-athletes to participate in the study. One hundred and sixty-three student-athletes from Division I NJCAA Colleges took part in this study. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to examine the factor structure of the CSPS. A one-way MANOVA was used to examine the gender effect on Athletic Experience, Athletic Program, Academics, and Outside Influence. Results: Results of the EFA indicated that the CSPS should include: Athletic Experience (5 items), Athletic Program (6 items), Academics (6 items), and Outside Influence (6 items). These four factors explained 52.6% of the total variance, and their Cronbach alpha coefficients were .775, .869, .880, and .804, respectively. Results of the one-way MANOVA indicated the model was significant (p = .002) with a medium to large effect size and huge power (Wilks’s Λ = .893, partial η2 = .107, power = .929). Post-hoc univariate ANOVAs showed that females had significantly higher Outside Influence mean scores than males. Conclusion: The results showed a new trend in factors influencing the college selection process. Overall, the five most important items (academic support, degree leading to a good job, institution offered an academic program of interest, academic reputation of the department of your desired major, and level of competition) should create a basis for coaches’ marketing and recruiting strategies to successfully recruit student-athletes of a specific gender. |
