Chapter 1: Organizational Learning in Athletic Departments: Toward an Anti-Deficit and Data-Driven Approach to Academic Support for Division I Athletes

There are increasing concerns about the educational experiences of Division I athletes in big-time college sports. Calls for reform have come from within colleges and universities and beyond. In this chapter, I describe the current state of academic support centers for athletes and discuss the role of individual practitioners in organizational learning. Next, I examine the concept of cognitive frames and explore how practitioners make sense of the athlete experience and subsequent outcomes. I also introduce the career transition scorecard (CTS), an anti-deficit and data-driven approach, designed to improve the strengths and meet the needs of Division I athletes and to shape and advance the future direction of athletic organizations.

Pressures are mounting for athletic departments to improve academic intervention strategies and to address inequalities in educational outcomes for their Division I athletes (Comeaux, 2013; Harper, Williams, & Blackman, 2013; Southall, Eckard, Nagel, & Hale, 2012). With the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I academic progress rate (APR) initiative, which is designed to raise the level of academic expectations and eligibility standards for students who participate in team sports, athletic stakeholders have been primarily concerned with ways to implement academic game plans for athletes. The development of successful strategies has been and will continue to be largely contingent upon the processes and approaches that practitioners employ. Indeed, the educational decisions and practices of stakeholders in the affairs of athletics—including directors of athletics, head coaches, and practitioners¹—will inevitably shape the quality of experiences for athletes.

One of the most glaring factors that contributes to ineffective intervention strategies and inequitable outcomes for athletes by race, ethnicity, gender, and sport, is that practitioners in academic support centers rely to a significant degree on anecdotal information rather than empirical data when they make decisions about the academic needs and futures of athletes (Comeaux, 2012). When practitioners are not engaged in the kind of research that influences their practices, they are less likely to be fully aware of the types and magnitude of academic and personal issues that athletes face (Polkinghorne, 2004), and they are less likely to respond to athletes in meaningful and effective ways. Moreover, in the absence of data-driven practices, practitioners generally rely on assumptions and in some cases develop internalized biases about athletes that too often present them through a deficit lens (Benson, 2000; Comeaux, 2007).

I argue in this chapter that the ongoing academic concerns of Division I athletes primarily constitute an organizational learning problem of practitioners as opposed to an individual learning problem of athletes. An athletic department’s shared knowledge, norms, assumptions, and histories shape its practices and culture, and may hinder its stakeholders from developing more effective and responsive intervention strategies, and from producing more equal educational outcomes for Division I athletes by race, ethnicity, gender, and sport. Academic intervention strategies have had limited success because of practitioners’ own general understandings of and underlying beliefs about athletes, and their inability to alter their preferred understandings so as to meaningful engage and understand their athletes.

Organizational learning theory can help us to develop a deeper understanding of athletic departments and how they may perpetuate undesirable experiences and outcomes for college athletes. The decisions and practices of these departments reflect common understandings of practitioners and other prominent stakeholders in athletics. These shared “cognitive frames,” also known as “frames of reference,” “schemata,” “orientations,” and “mental models,” are internal images of external reality that shape individual and collective perspectives and drive action, including how information is gathered and interpreted, how professional judgments are made, and how behavior is understood and explained (Bartunek, 1984; Bolman & Deal, 1991; Gentner & Stevens, 1983). They can provide insight into the resolution of some of the organizational learning problems associated with college athletes, including an over reliance on anecdotal information at the expense of empirical data to inform academic intervention strategies. To reframe practitioners’ cognitive processes requires an approach to addressing the strengths and needs of athletes that is both anti-deficit² and data-driven (e.g., a focus on gathering and analyzing data in order to make informed decisions).

In the sections that follow, I first describe the current state of academic support centers for athletes and discuss the role of individuals in organizational learning. To date, there is little attention toward understanding how the assumptions, attitudes, and beliefs of practitioners shape their practices and ultimately impact the athlete experience. With that in mind, I examine the concept of cognitive frames and explore how practitioners make sense of the athlete experience and subsequent outcomes. Finally, I introduce the career transition scorecard (CTS), an anti-deficit and data-driven approach designed to improve the strengths and meet the needs of Division I athletes and to shape and advance the future direction of athletic organizations.