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WS WC 14 Hire and Train Diverse Aquatic Staff to Meet Community Needs

Key area

WS WC Swim

Hire and train diverse aquatic staff to support community needs.

Spectrum level: Changing Organizational Practices

Evidence level: Medium

Implementation levels: Community County National State

Rationale:

Evidence shows that role models are critically important in building self-efficacy. The hiring and development of diverse aquatics leadership, and the exposure of diverse swimmer and other aquatic professionals to communities of color, and other diverse populations such as disabled persons, who are not typically involved in swimming and aquatics, will be critically important to building self-efficacy and encouraging participation in aquatic activities among these populations.

Anticipated Impact:

After implementing this recommendation, you can expect to experience the following outcomes.

  • Greater diversity among swimmers, aquatics staff, and aquatics professionals.
  • Development of a population of swimmers, aquatics staff, and aquatics professionals that reflects the local, regional, state, and national diversity statistics.

Evidence:

Karunanayake and Nauta (2004): Several theorists (e.g., Bandura, 1977, 1986; Gottfredson, 1981; Hackett & Byard, 1996) have argued that individuals seek career role models whom they perceive as similar to them regarding some easily identifiable characteristics because they assume that such role models' experiences would apply to their own lives as well. In other words, a role model will be inspirational only to the degree that a person is able to identify with that model, and "evidence that dissimilar persons succeed from time to time does not necessarily persuade observers that they, too, can attain such outcomes from their efforts" (Bandura, 1986, p. 302). This thought is known as the similarity hypothesis. With respect to gender, the similarity hypothesis has been well supported by empirical data (Basow & Howe, 1979; Erkut & Mokros, 1984; Gilbert, 1985).
Karunanayake and Nauta (2004) that “Role models may be especially important for minority individuals' career development because a history of discrimination and limited career options may have decreased their self-efficacy and outcome expectations, leading some minorities to have lower educational and career aspirations (Greene, 1990; Hackett & Byars, 1996)” (p. 226) Norwood, Waller, and Spearman (2014) “Black youth need to see more images of people who look like them participating in swimming to plant the seed of their own swimming participation being a possibility and eventually a reality” (p. 272).

Evidence Sources:

  1. Karunanayake, D., & Nauta, M. M. (2004). The relationship between race and students' identified career role models and perceived role model influence. The Career Development Quarterly, 52(3), 225-234.
  2. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological review, 84(2), 191.
  3. Bandura, A., & Cervone, D. (1986). Differential engagement of self-reactive influences in cognitive motivation. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 38(1), 92-113.
  4. Gottfredson, L. S. (1981). Circumscription and compromise: A developmental theory of occupational aspirations. Journal of Counseling psychology, 28(6), 545.
  5. Gottfredson, D. C. (1981). Black-white differences in the educational attainment process: What have we learned?. American Sociological Review, 542-557.
  6. Hackett, G., & Byars, A. M. (1996). Social cognitive theory and the career development of African American women. The Career Development Quarterly, 44(4), 322-340.
  7. Basow, S. A., & Howe, K. G. (1979). Model influence on career choices of college students. Vocational Guidance Quarterly.
  8. Erkut, S., & Mokros, J. R. (1984). Professors as models and mentors for college students. American Educational Research Journal, 21(2), 399-417.
  9. Gilbert, 1985 ?? Check with WG Cochair is this the reference?? ilbert, L. A., & Evans, S. (1985).Dimensions of same-gender studentfaculty role-model relationships. Sex Roles, 12, 111-123.
  10. Greene, 1990 Norwood, D., Waller, S., & Spearman, L. (2014). Going deep: Experiences of a Division I university’s first black female competitive swimmer. International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education, 8(3), 5.

High Risk Populations Addressed:

All populations can benefit from implementation of this recommendation.

Evaluation Metrics:

Indicators of long-term impact: Numbers and ratios of BIPOC persons who are swimmers, aquatics staff, and aquatics professionals

Indicators of intermediate impact:

Indicators of initial impact:

Implementation:

Consider the following to ensure successful implementation:

Potential Facilitators:

The following factors might facilitate the implementation of this recommendation.

  • Review the NFL’s Rooney Rule for guidance on effective implementation in the context of the aquatics professional. https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/12/31/rooney-rule-explained-nfl-diversity-policy https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/04/14/ap-fbn-rooney-rule

GAP Recommendation:

None