Date

8-2017

Department

School of Education

Degree

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Chair

Jeffrey Savage

Keywords

Community, Higher Education, Intramurals, Involvement

Disciplines

Education | Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Higher Education | Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Research has shown benefits to the student experience for college students when they participate in intramural sports on university campuses. These benefits include improved physical and social health as well as academic performance. This non-experimental, predictive correlational study sought to understand if a relationship exists between the predictive variables of length and frequency in intramural sports and sense of community as the criterion outcome with undergraduate students on private liberal arts campuses. Participants were undergraduate students from two institutions of similar size, and sense of community was measured by Chavis, Lee, and Acosta’s (2008) Sense of Community Index 2 (SCI-2) scale. 221 participants were measured for this study. Multiple regression was used to explore the research question and hypothesis. Overall, the results show the model was statistically significant, though individual predictors, by themselves, did not significantly predict perceived sense of community within undergraduate students. Recommendations for further research include expanding this study to different types of undergraduate institution, exploring if a greater relationship of sense of community and underclassmen is consistent among multiple campuses and involvement opportunities, and studying perceived sense of community within eSports opportunities on college campuses.

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