Since literature regarding effects of athletic participation on growth, change, and positive academic outcomes in high school students remains inconsistent, there is a need for research to determine benefits of high school sports. This research study was designed to investigate the benefits of high school sports on study habits and academic goals, as perceived by a group of high school student athletes. A questionnaire was developed to survey high school student athletes and resulting data will be statistically and qualitatively analyzed. This chapter presents a detailed description of the methodology and procedures used for this study.
Survey research, a nonexperimental design will be used for this study. While the experimental design allows for the control over variables and threats to validity, and the nonexperimental design does not, both yield empirical results. Empirical research includes the collection of data and the analysis of the data to answer a research question and/or hypothesis. The survey design is a method used to gather scientific information related to a topic, such the perceived benefits of high school sports on amounts of academic study time (study habits) and academic goals. Quantitative and qualitative data will be gathered from the study survey.
For this study a questionnaire will be designed to determine how high school student athletes rate their academic goals, positive academic outcomes, academic study time (study habits), and athletic identity. Closed-ended questions will be used for most of the questionnaire. The closed-ended question will be chosen to allow for statistical evaluation of findings. However, the disadvantages of the closed-ended question are that it presents only a small set of alternatives from which to answer and findings from answers may be limited. With this type of question, alternatives presented may be ones that the respondent might never have presented on their o...