Administrative Trust as a Contributor to Forensic Coach Burnout and Exit

The present study sought to determine whether a relationship exists and its extent between intercollegiate forensic coach trust in university administrators and burnout in intercollegiate forensic coaches. Specifically, this study examined the relationship between intercollegiate forensic coach trust in their university administrators with both intercollegiate forensic coach satisfaction and intercollegiate forensic coach burnout in predicting intercollegiate forensic coach intent to leave forensics independent of demographic variables. This study’s primary research question asks: Does a relationship exist between trust in university administrators, job satisfaction, burnout, and exit for intercollegiate forensic coaches?The present study’s data collection began November 13, 2020 and was completed November 27, 2020. Following IRB approval and after seeking permission from the email listserv’s host institution, the researcher posted an introduction to the study and an invitation to participate to the IE-L (individual events-listserv) forensic e-mail mailing list hosted by the Minnesota State University, Mankato and comprising 561 forensic programs engaged in individual events and debate intercollegiate competition to gather voluntary participants. The researcher posted a reminder email to the listserv two days prior to the study’s closing to encourage additional participation. The online survey tool, Qualtrics served as the survey administration software. Of the 561 forensic programs sampled, 65 individuals responded to the survey. The researcher removed eight participants who did not complete the survey from the dataset. Thus, this study included the responses from 57 participants, a 10% response rate, in the data analysis.This study employed a quantitative approach to its research design. Specifically, this study utilized correlational research to determine whether a relationship exists and its extent between administrative trust, job satisfaction, burnout, and exit. Hypothesis testing assessed the relational strength and direction of the variables.This study’s population included participants identified as an executive director of forensics, director of forensics, assistant director of forensics, director of individual events, director of debate, coach, assistant coach, or graduate teaching assistant coach from intercollegiate forensic programs across the United States. The criterion for participation in this study included part- or full-time employment at a university or community college, including compensated graduate teaching assistants. This study did not involve volunteer forensic coaches due to their lessened likelihood of engaging with university administrators regarding managing program resources and decision-making. Furthermore, this study included participants who met the above criteria yet exited intercollegiate forensics via retirement or resignation. Since the forensic coach population comprises a tiny subset of higher education roles, this study employed a nonrandom convenience sampling method to gather data.Trust in University Administration, Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Job Satisfaction, Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Burnout, and Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Intent to Leave the Activity served as the variables for the present study. The researcher utilized Gratz’s (2018) Institutional Trust instrument which successfully measured institutional trust by faculty through the utilization of a 4-item 5-point Likert scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” adapted from a similar study by Cook and Wall (1980). The 18 item 6-Point Likert type Job in General Scale (JIG; Ironson, Smith, Brannick, Gibson, & Paul, 1989) due to its subsequent successful utilization in reliably demonstrating employment satisfaction (Balzer et al., 1997) found its employment here to measure Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Job Satisfaction. The researcher utilized the Maslach’s Burnout Inventory’s 22-item 7-point scale ranging from “never experienced” to “every day” (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996) to measure Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Burnout (Carmack & Holm, 2013; Roloff & Brown, 2006). Four items adapted from Geurts et al. (1998) which successfully measured participants’ intention to leave the organization along with the single item, “Have you thought about leaving forensic (e.g., not coaching)?” (Carmack & Holm, 2013, p. 48) measured Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Exit.Data comprised results from 57 participants sampled via nonrandom convenience sampling from 561 U.S. intercollegiate forensic programs. Participants completed a 49- item questionnaire pertaining to Trust in University Administrators, Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Job Satisfaction, Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Burnout, and Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Intent to Leave. Descriptive statistics and frequencies provided insight on demographic information. Correlational analysis between the variables indicated statistical significance relationships between the variables, Trust in University Administrators, Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Job Satisfaction, Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Burnout, and Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Intent to Leave. However, regression analysis revealed only University Trust in Administrators and Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Job Satisfaction proved significant in predicting Intercollegiate Forensic Coach Intent to Leave.