Contributor

Wil

Subject Area

Education

Abstract

Strength and Conditioning (S&C) internships play a critical role in the development of students and graduates looking to enter the S&C profession. However, little research has been conducted to understand the typical structures, responsibilities, and expectations of internship programs or the rationales behind the designs and structures of these programs. Despite the reliance on S&C internships to develop entry-level candidates for the profession, there is a lack of standardization and structure within the U.S. intercollegiate setting. The purpose of this study is to identify how S&C internship supervisors describe the content of their internship programs and to understand the rationale for why they structure and design these programs as they do.

The research questions guiding this study are exploratory in nature and include: (1) How do Strength and Conditioning internship supervisors at NCAA institutions describe the typical structures, responsibilities, and expectations of their internship program? (2) What rationales do Strength and Conditioning internship supervisors at NCAA institutions provide for the structure and design of their internship program? Experiential Learning Theory is utilized as a theoretical framework to view and analyze the data resulting from this study.

Overall, internships lacked consistency in structure and content. This lack of consistency may be largely due to resource constraints and internship supervisor beliefs. ELT, and its components, were not specifically mentioned by any internship supervisor. However, most internship programs demonstrated partial alignment with the ELT cycle, with some incorporating all four ELT stages. The findings suggest that while S&C internships provide meaningful experiential exposure, inconsistencies in educational design may limit learning transfer and professional development. Implications for internship supervisors, S&C departments, and the S&C profession are discussed, and recommendations for intentional, theory-driven internship design are presented in the discussion of this research.

Degree Date

Spring 5-15-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ed.D.

Department

Education Policy & Leadership

Advisor

Dr. Willis Jones

Second Advisor

Dr. Allison Kanny

Third Advisor

Dr. Travis Triplett

Number of Pages

159

Format

.pdf

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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