Research Review Paper

Sherman 1

Derrick Sherman
Research Review Paper
Georgia Southern University
EDUR 7130: Educational Research

Research Review Paper

Sherman 2
Research Review Paper

Untangling the Links among Athletic Involvement, Gender, Race, and Adolescent
Academic Outcomes is an article on a study conducted by researchers and professors in the New
York area. The study was aimed to find the relationship between the degree of athletic
involvement and the degree of success in the classroom, or lack thereof. This study was
conducted with adolescent teens and seems to be very important and relevant to our society.
Nowadays colleges and even high schools are becoming more known for what they accomplish
on the playing fields rather than what's being accomplished in the classroom, and that is coming
with a cost. Providing these sports for adolescents can be quite expensive, and often times the
question arises of whether the cost is worth the gain of having the sports. This study can be very
beneficial in determining the answer.
I believe this article is that of a correlational study. This is true because of the particular
way the study was set up and conducted, as well as their ultimate goal being to find the
relationship between playing sports and success in academics. The students who were involved
in the study nearly amounted 600, all of them from the western portion of the state of New York.
These researchers assured diversity among the group seeking both male and female students,
different race and ethnicities, and students from different areas and backgrounds. This idea was
great for preventing sampling bias by only using one particular group of individual students.
These students were from different schools which preserved the validity of the findings. This is a
great start, but going into other areas of the United States would be great to determine whether or
not the correlation would continue.

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The researchers used personal interviews to gather information from the research
participants. Authors went door to door in hopes of conducting these interviews with parents and
their adolescent child. The information was gathered at three different times which the authors
refer to as waves. Each wave of interview were at least a year apart and served as sort of a
checkup as wave number one served as the benchmark. They experienced close to a 90 percent
success rate from wave to wave, meaning the family would again allow researchers into their
home to conduct second and third interviews. Although gathering this information may have
taken a long time, I believe it was a great way to collect quality data. I did not agree with the
reliability of their measurements because the information all came from the word of mouth of the
participants. Researchers would ask students and parents information about grade point average
and attendance records rather than seeking those records through the schools. I believe the study
has some credibility, but only to a certain extent. Also, the families were asked questions that
would allow the family to categorize, or not categorize, their child as a jock. I believe there will
be an automatic correlation between those whom identified themselves as "jocks" and their
grades. Anyone who refers to themselves as a "jock" is usually going to devote more time to their
sports than their academics. I would change the questions around and come up with a formula in
which I would be able to determine their athletic status versus just coming out and having it as a
question.
The research found many trends and correlations. Female athletes were much better in the
classroom than female non-athletes. This was very interesting because it was the exact opposite
for males; the grades of male athletes were substantially lower than grades of non-athlete males
on average. As for misconduct, male athletes had less conduct violations on average; this can be
attributed to the negative consequences they would have faced on their athletic teams for such

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violations. The females showed very little discrepancy in misconduct of athletes and nonathletes.
The authors did a good job throughout the article thoroughly explaining each step in the
process. For example, "trained interviewers conducted face-to-face interviews in respondents'
homes, with additional data on sensitive issues collected via a private, self-administered
questionnaire." (Barnes, Farrell etc, 2005, p. 180) This was the statement written by the authors
to show readers the extent to which they gathered information to gain credibility with eventual
hopes of strengthening the validity of the research findings. The fact that the researchers gathered
information in six different waves but decided to only use waves 1 and 3 in the study was
alarming to me. It's common to not use every piece of information gathered in the study, but in
this case, one could question if the other waves presented information that did not support the
rest of their findings.
After all was said and done, this study was conducted properly despite some minor
changes that could have been made to strengthen validity and decrease bias. I believe this gives
great information to educators, and coaches of adolescents. This information shows the benefits
of using sports to achieve success in the classroom and improve overall behavior, as well as
which group of students need the most help to reverse a negative trend.
For instance, male athletes have to be pushed harder to achieve higher success in
academics. The article clearly shows that male athletes have a much harder time keeping up in
school versus non-athletes. This can be great information for educators because it can strengthen
the argument to mandate extra study time for male sports, to assure that they are spending
enough time on academics. These are practices that can be adopted by schools, counties even the

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entire state to assure that this trend reverses. This study can also cause educators to look deeper
into the subject and determine if the standards in order to compete in the athletic activities should
be higher to make sure balance is achieved between sports and academics.
As for the females, this study should give educators the extra motivation to get more
females involved in sports. From the results, educators will understand that women who
participate in athletics receive higher grades than women who do not participate in athletics. I
believe sports keep females involved, especially school sponsored sports. Female adolescents,
who are not involved with sports, usually have some type of job which takes away from their
studies or in many cases offer too much idle time which has been proven to be harmful to
anyone. Educators can use this information to go out and gain more funds to pay for female
sports as well as find creative ways to make female sports more well-known. They may even find
it possible for them to travel and play before male teams in the same venues in front of the same
fans.
The article should reach each educator and show the impact that sports can have. There
are many educators out there who believe sports get in the way of academics. I believe this
article will give any educator who views this study the confidence that sports are not harmful and
in many instances can be very helpful especially in the lives of adolescents.

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References

Barnes, G., Ferrell, M., Melnick, M., Miller, K., & Sabo, D. (2005). Untangling the Links among
Athletic Involvement, Gender, Race, and Adolescent Academic Outcomes. Sociol Sport,
22(2), 178-193. Retrieved February, 2015, from
https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=57&sid=2fbf614b-fbaa-4cce8f38-6b9c41de2d2f@sessionmgr114&hid=117
McMillan, J., & Schumacher, S. (2010). Research in education: Evidence-based inquiry
(7th ed.). Boston: Pearson.