High school sport has often been considered a viable context for promoting youth development of life skills and character (Turgeon et al., 2019). So much so that key stakeholders, including coaches and athletic directors, have been charged with meeting the mission statements of these education-based sport programs (Camire et al., 2009). However, despite a focus on promotion of psychosocial development in the very definition of education-based athletics (Blanton et al., 2021), coach and athletic director perceptions of their responsibility for fulfilling this 'social mission' of student-athlete psychosocial development has not been explored. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to answer the following research questions: (1) How do coaches and athletic directors perceive their responsibility for the social mission of high school sport and student athletic success, and (2) what job characteristics predict perceptions of responsibility for the social mission of high school sport and student athletic success? This study used a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design with stratified sampling of 191 coaches and 112 athletic directors spanning all four divisions in Michigan. Responsibility and predictors of responsibility such as skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, feedback from the job, feedback from agents, and working with others were measured using the Job Diagnostic Survey (Hackman & Oldham, 1975), and explanatory follow-up focus group interviews were conducted (Creswell & Plano-Clark, 2018).Results from Research Question 1 indicate that coaches perceive the same amount of responsibility for both the social mission and the athletic success of student-athletes. Athletic directors perceive more responsibility for the social mission than they do for promoting athletic success, although coaches had higher levels of perceived responsibility for the social mission than the athletic directors. In the follow up focus groups the coaches indicated feelings of perceived definitive responsibility for the social mission, as well as some level of nuanced responsibility when recognizing that others also may share the responsibility for student-athlete psychosocial development. Coaches also commented on the balance of responsibility between promoting athlete life skills development while fostering athletic success. Athletic directors discussed a perceived definitive responsibility for the social mission, with their conversations highlighting that nuanced responsibility includes the multitude of other duties assigned to their jobs. Specific to the athletic director group was the mentioning of accountability and evaluation as an obvious, and mostly unwanted, next step from assuming responsibility for student-athlete psychosocial development.Results of Research Question 2 revealed that status as an educator, task identity and task significance significantly predicted coaches' level of responsibility for fulfilling the social mission of high school sport. In follow-up focus groups, the coaches discussed task identity, feedback, motivation for joining the profession, time demands of the job, and external support as important influences on responsibility. In the athletic director sample, task identity and feedback from the job significantly predicted athletic directors' responsibility for fulfilling the social mission. In follow-up focus groups, athletic directors emphasized task identity, feedback, administrator responsibility for the perception of the school, motivation for joining the profession, and demands of the job as important influences the responsibility for the social mission of education-based athletics. The current study provides foundational data on the responsibility of coaches and athletic directors for future lines of research.
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