Thesis Defense Announcement

The College of Communication and Fine Arts announces the final thesis defense of 

Vivian Brandhoff

for the degree of Master of Arts

June 29, 2016 at 1:00 pm in 309, Art and Communication Building 

Major Advisor: Craig Stewart, PhD

International Student-athlete's Communication with American Coaches

ABSTRACT: This thesis explored lived experiences of former international student-athletes in communicating with their American coaches through ten qualitative interviews. Despite the large and growing number of international student-athletes within the NCAA, research on this population is scarce. To study this topic is important because the relationship and communication with their coaches’ highly impacts student-athletes’ performance in many aspects of their collegiate experience and beyond. The study found that cultural differences in training methods and systems, an athlete’s English proficiency, a coach’s personality traits and a coach’s willingness to adjust to his/her athletes all affected coach-athlete communication.