Interculturalism and Varsity Athletics : Evaluating Orientation Sessions
Creators: name: Anderson, Zoe
name: Barnett, Lauren
name: Berlet, Callie
name: Bourchier-Willans, Abbie
name: Vadot, Emma
name: Tardif, Celine
Publisher: name: The University of British Columbia
Year: 2019

description: Our CBEL project was the Interculturalism and Varsity Athletics: Evaluating Orientation Sessions. We worked with, and were supported by Rachael Sullivan from the Equity &amp; Inclusion Office, as well as Jayne Blank from UBC Varsity Athletics. Additionally, we worked with UBC Social Ecological Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) project coordinator Sally Lin. Through regular bi-weekly meetings with the community partners, we kept the collaboration constant and made sure we were all on the same page. We also exchanged emails in between meetings with updates on action items, such as finalized survey questions. Our primary purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness of the 2018 UBC Varsity Athlete Orientation, including scenarios which were facilitated to provide hands-on experience to athletes regarding what they learned in the orientation. The main objectives were to identify key educational factors that promote interculturalism and community building practices within the varsity athletic community, as well as to explore what affects the orientation had on students, and what factors might need to be adjusted in order to make it more impactful. In order to do this, a Qualtrics survey was created for UBC Varsity Athletes. As a basic outline when creating the survey, the Kirkpatrick Framework was used, which assesses four levels of educational programs including the reaction, learning, behavior and results (Bates, 2004). Using this framework as reference, questions were created relevant to various aspects of the orientation, asking about athletes’ demographics, whether they felt more prepared to interact with athletes of various cultural backgrounds, and their overall thoughts on the orientation. Our first finding was that most student-athletes felt neutral to extremely prepared when it came to working with athletes of different race, gender, age or values. The second finding looked at how different scenarios during the orientation provided the student-athletes with a good understanding of building a positive community. The social circumstances scenario was least effective, and rookie party was most effective in providing this understanding. Our third finding was that most student-athletes felt neutral or somewhat agreed with the statement that scenarios gave them adequate resources to build a positive community within their teams. Based on our findings, three general recommendations were made. The first one is to further investigate the role of the facilitator at the orientation, and how specific facilitators may be more impactful for some athletes than others. Our second recommendation is to further research the lack of multiculturalism in UBC varsity athletics, and how this could be a systemic issue for promoting interculturalism within the community. Thirdly, a different approach to the orientation may be more effective, such as having a week-long community building orientation, rather than having it all in one day. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”