the moral reasoning of student athletes and athletic training students

THE MORAL REASONING OF STUDENT ATHLETES AND ATHLETIC
TRAINING STUDENTS: DESCRIBING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
ATHLETICS AND HIGHER EDCUATION
Abstract
By Patricia Lynne Davenport, M.A.
Washington State University
May 2007
Chair: Jennifer Beller
The ideal performance perspective is that through which sport is viewed as a channel of
pure competition where only the best combination of natural ability, courage, determination to
better oneself, and an emotional and kinesthetic intelligence will lead to victory. Unfortunately,
this is the ideal, not the reality. Today, a win-at-all-costs mentality has clouded the ideal. Both
higher education and the NCAA have explicitly stated ideal goals of character development. The
purpose of this two part study is to: 1) conduct a pilot study for validation purposes of the
Ergogenic Aids Moral Competence Inventory and 2) examine the general moral reasoning of
Division I college student athletes’ and athletic training students’ compared with their moral
reasoning about doping in sport as one measure of character development in higher education.
In this study, 195 male and female athletic training students and student athletes from a
variety of sports at an institution with division I athletic programs voluntarily completed two
surveys. The HBVCI (Cronbach alpha .77-.88) measures moral reasoning with relationship to
scenarios common in all aspects of sport. The EAMCI, currently in its second pilot stage, was
used to measure moral reasoning of individuals with specific reference to issues of doping in
iv