HOW SPORTS PARTICIPATION AFFECTS ACADEMICS

How Sports Participation Affects Academics

[Gene Frischhertz]

[Graduate School of Louisiana College]

Abstract Of Proposal

In the debate about athletic participation and academic performance, it is often assumed that sport activities of adolescents are harmful to their academics outcomes. The underlying line of reasoning is oversimplified. Since the time spent on sport activities crowds out time devoted to schooling, the impact of sport is negative. However, empirical investigations find a rather positive correlation between sport and educational attainment (e.g., [Barron et al., 2000] and [Long and Caudill, 1991]). These findings are supported by two main arguments. The first extends the simple allocation of time model by introducing additional activities (Becker, 1965). The second acknowledges that leisure activities can have direct positive but also negative effects on educational productivity. The relationship between high school athletic participation and educational achievement is one of the most discussed, debated, and researched topics in all of sport scholarship, particularly when one looks at the social scientific research focused on sport and society interactions and their consequences.

Dozens of dissertations have been written on the topic, and new studies and papers-the best and most important of which are reviewed in this report-appear every year. Nevertheless, the crucial point for a general audience is that periodic updates, reviews, reappraisals and re-evaluations (Braddock 2007; Picou et al. 2005; Holland and Thomas 2007; and Marsh 1992) have, over the years, consistently and invariably yielded evidence concluding that there is a significant baseline correlation between high school sports participation and higher rates of academic achievement and aspiration for individual students. Even research that is critical of the sports/education nexus or that seeks to complicate and unpack this statistical association begins from this basic assumption and understanding. The relationship between high school sports participation and scholastic achievement is, in the words of one such research team (Miller et al. 2005), a "fact, well-established.". This paper discusses how sports participation affects academics.

Table Of Contents

ABSTRACT OF PROPOSALII

INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH PROPOSAL1

REVIEW OF LITERATURE8

METHODS AND PROCEDURES TO BE USED19

Participants19

Design19

Measures20

Procedures21

Data analysis21

ANTICIPATED RESULTS AND IMPLICATION23

LITERATURE CITED26

APPENDICES39

Cover Letter39

Proposed Questionnaire40

Introduction To The Research Proposal

Economic analyses of sports have become very popular in the last decades (Sloane, 2006). While the focus of most studies is on labour markets, labour-management relations, wage determination, and finance in professional sports like baseball, basketball, football, and soccer, only few research deals with the impact of non-professional sports on economic outcomes. Conversely, the economic literature about human capital mainly focuses on formal education and on-the-job training. Other forms of human capital investments like out of school activities of students (e.g., sport) are largely neglected.

Exceptions stem all from the United States, where some studies analyze the impact of high school and college athletic participation on educational and labour market success (see for example [Anderson, 1998], [Barron et al., 2000], [Eide and Ronan, 2001], [Lipscomb, 2007], [Long and Caudill, 1991], [Maloney and McCormick, 2004], [Robst and Keil, 2000] and [Stevenson, 2006]). Overall, the studies point to a positive impact of sport activities. However, non-professional sport in ...