Assessment of Services Provided to NCAA Division I Athletes: Development of a Model and Instrument

In the United States, student-athlete welfare was adopted as a basic principle by the National Collegiate Athletic Association in 1995 (NCAA, 2005). In addition, the NCAA required that Division I institutions provide academic programs and career/life skills programs as well as athletic skills programs. These directives have resulted in the development of a complex array of services for student-athletes. As no studies have assessed the full range of services now provided to student-athletes, the purpose of this study was to develop a Model for Assessment of Services in Intercollegiate Athletics (MASIA) with an accompanying survey instrument. A total of 422 student-athletes, the entire population of one NCAA Division I-A institution, were surveyed for the model tests. Results of the structural and measurement model tests suggest that the MASIA is a reasonable fit to the data and that the survey scale developed to test the model is psychometrically sound. Implications and limitations of this study are discussed.