Waiting For Approval

It takes a lot of dedication to do a research paper for your capstone.  For me, I have been developing this research for quite some time with writing a variety of different research papers that discuss the gender inequality between men and women in the sports industry.  As something to set my paper a part from most, I decided to conduct a survey study, in which it is still in the review process with the IRB board, and with the results of the survey I plan to plug them in my paper to help elaborate and display just how much inequality is relevant in this industry.  It is rather interesting to read, but it is even more interesting to experience the level of behavior that a male puts forth when a female walks into a sports facility.

Most recently, I interviewed for an internship in a sports facility where it was just males in the office. The moment I walked in, eyes were on me and you could feel the judgement spewing through their minds and even looks towards me.  It was certainly something I have never experienced before, only researched about and interviewed other sport reporters about it.  It raises questions in my mind to ask myself, is working in the sport industry worth it?  Furthermore, what did the women who do this as a career do to get where they are today?  To me, it is certainly an admirable job position for any female to take on, but I do not see myself, personally, working in sports.  With that being said, I am anxiously waiting to see if my survey does get approved and if it does, I am curious as to know what the results of my survey will be.

Created The Survey & Now We Wait

There has been a great deal of progress led to a screeching halt due to getting approval from the university to distribute my survey via email to the entire student body.  This news makes me rather nervous because if it is not accepted, that means this study can not meet the deadline for finals.  It is an attitudinal study, therefore since it falls under psychology, it must be approved by the IRB to then be sent to students.  I am certainly crossing my fingers that this survey gets approved so I can further my research for my capstone.

As we play the waiting game, I have not stopped researching more cases of women who have endured social scrutiny because of their gender in a male dominated field in sports.  In fact, I have experienced recently the immediate discomfort of going into a male dominated office and feeling the pressure of being a female.  I then was reminded by a dear friend of mine that having those feelings is a common thing because it not only happens in sports, it also happens in any male dominated branch you enter.  Hearing that, it lit a fire within to set forth with furthering my research and raise awareness on the importance of equality for all in any field they go into, but more specifically, women in the sports industry.

New Progress on My Capstone Research Paper

I am getting very excited for my capstone project, yet there is much more work that is needed.  In previous posts regarding my capstone, I mentioned that I am working not only with Monica Larson's assistance, as she is my capstone director, but I am also working with a professor from Morehead University in Kentucky.  Professor Chen works specifically in women's studies in sports.  He has become a huge asset in the progression of my research.  In fact, I have just finalized an abstract that I am submitting for the IACS Summit that is going to be held in Phoenix, Arizona in March 2017.  This is a conference that accepts just a limited amount of research papers that they then have the writers and researchers deliver to the Summit.  With being a dual major in Recreation and Leisure Studies, my advisor on the West side of campus, Dr. Kendig, along with my other professors in that department, attend these conferences and this would be the first to have a Shepherd University student deliver their paper in front of a conference.  However, that will only happen if my paper is accepted.

In addition to completing my extended abstract, I have completed my survey questions and I am in the process of entering them into Survey Monkey (a survey machine that helps track the rate success and number of participants) to them be approved by the university to be emailed out to the student body.  Once the survey's are completed, it is just a matter of plugging in my findings and reconstruct my paper to solely focus on the perception people have of female sports and media coverage, including sport reporters and journalists.  I am extremely excited and am hoping to have this done by the end of October to then present to the faculty by early November.

Positive Progress On My Capstone

The progress I have made with my research paper has been great.  I am currently conversing back and forth with a professor at Morehead University in Kentucky that specializes in conducting studies with other students around the United States.  His name is Professor Steve Chen and he has been a huge help in guiding me in the right path as to whether my study should be geared more as a qualitative or quantitative study.  The survey questions to be submitted to Shepherd University's research center are still a work in progress, however I have submitted my paper to the writing center on campus to have it revised for grammar mistakes and sentence structure.  After I have made the corrections, I submitted my paper to Professor Steve Chen and we are in the process of drafting an extended abstract to be submitted to the IACS Summit for the conference in March of 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona.  If my research paper is accepted, I will be able to present my findings to the Summit.  In addition to getting my paper ready for submission, I am also looking into different publications to have my paper published.  I am excited to see what these next couple of weeks have to offer and the work I will be putting into my paper to help formulate the best paper to help shed light to the inequality for women in the sports industry.

Title IX Academic Resources Help Shed Light On Female Inequality

In 1972, President Nixon had signed a document, a document we now know as Title IX that set the world of sports on a frenzy.  The reason why was because Title IX is a document that falls under the Educational Amendment that states any educational program receiving Federal assistance can lose funding if it discriminates the sex of participants in that sport (Women In Sports: The Struggle for Equality, 2000).  This piece comes from a document called, Women In Sports: The Struggle for Equality that was published back in 2000 and discussed Title IX and what it stands for, the first encounter of inequality that was televised with the Women's World Cup in 1999, and how this document signed back in 1972 has done little to raise awareness for equality and eliminate discrimination.

The 1999 Women's World Cup had more than 658,000 fans in attendance and one billion television viewers.  One of the first largest viewings of women's sports.  However, women in soccer still make half of what men do in 2016, yet the U.S. Women's Soccer Team has more wins recorded then men do.  With that being said, in April 2016, the women's team filed lawsuit against the league due to inequality.  There is no equality in the world of sports, even if women teams receive more wins then men.  Title IX can be seen to be one layer of the wall of inequality being stripped away, however there are many more layers to be pealed away before we see equality between men and women.

Survey Studies For Women On And Off The Field

While studying females in the sport industry, it is important to take notes on different studies that other universities and institutions have done to help back-up your research and solidify the importance of your paper.  I did just that with referencing to a study that was done in the Ohio Valley Conference for NCAA Division 1 female collegiate athletes.  The study was conducted by Chen, Phillips, and Raybrun in 2015 and they evaluated sixty-three females with a survey dealing with behavioral and mental effects with stereotypes of female athletes, Title IX, and profitability with female sports.  The results received an eighty percent return rate of being effected by these factors while playing sports.  The main message of this study was to confirm if female athletes are treated differently, specifically, at a lower standard then male athletes.  The findings lead to the answer of yes, female athletes are treated differently and at a lower standard than males.

With my research paper focusing more so on inequality between females and males in the sport industry, this specific resource is important to help shed light to the issue we still face between men and women.  There is still not an equal playing field for men and women, and it is visible in the corporate world all the way to sports.  Not one gender is greater than the other, therefore deserves to be treated with the same amount of respect, equal pay, and equal opportunities all around.

Additional Academic Resource for Women On And Off The Field

As I have developed my research that will be featured in my research paper that covers women in sports, both on and off the field, the sections of my paper cover the different areas for women in the sports industry.  I begin to discuss the portrayal of female athletes and one resource of mine comes from Mean and Kassing as they discuss the issues that female athletes face with physical appearance. The moment a woman steps on the field in her sports uniform, she is expected to uphold feministic attributes of herself mentally and physically, but also to be respected as an athlete.  Many times this is not the case, in fact female athletes tend to perceive themselves as being different and obtaining the qualities male athletes have through the mindset of the game.  This is due to the pressure that the audience and sport industry itself put on women, therefore leaving them to develop that mindset that they have to be this way, rather then portraying feministic traits they grew up with.  What makes this academic resource featured in my paper so critical is the fact that women's mindsets are altered to think a certain way when entering athletics because we as spectators want to see that.  The athlete themselves are the actors and actresses, we are the audience and the critics.  It is quite eye-opening because our society is so consumed with this, it often times sends a negative message to young girls.  It is like saying, if you want to be more of a "manly" athlete but still a woman, you need to act like male athletes act.  Men and women are two separate human beings and deserve to be treated equally, however, that does not mean a male athlete acts like a woman on the field and a female athlete acts like a man on the field.  There's a balance between the two and needs to be discovered before the decline in female sports increases.  

Academic Resources For Women On and Off The Field

The moment I started this major, after a semester of starting my other major in Sports Communications, I knew I wanted to raise awareness to the amount of respect women receive in sports.  Now initially, we all think of playing sports, but there is much more involved, which is women sports reporters and coaches.  Those are the three areas that my research paper will cover.  In conducting my research, I plan to  conduct a survey throughout Shepherd University for students to complete.  My initial reaction to creating a survey is simply, however, it requires more work then what I thought.  This is one of the sources I will be using, a peoples survey throughout Shepherd University and the campus populations impression on women in sports.  By using Pew Research Center it is helping me create appropriate questions for the survey.  The survey questions need to be ones that can properly measure the options, experiences, and behaviors of the students, as it says at Pew Research Center.  The topics that will be included in the survey is Title IX, female athletes, female reporters, salary, and female coaches, all of which will be calculated to help answer the hypothesis in my study.  This is a key component in my research paper because it is something that has not been done before, but also it will be a reflection on campus knowledge for sports.  This is a topic that is often swept under the rug, but due to the rise of equality and the need for change, I truly believe that it is an appropriate paper that will raise awareness for change for women in the sports industry.

Comm 461 Blog 1 Capstone Ideas

As a dual major at Shepherd University, studying both sports communications and news media/communications, I have found a great interest in women's study both on and off the field.  I am interested in writing a research paper that goes in depth with research that has been presented through the years on the depiction of women in a male dominated world of sports.  Going into discussion of lawsuits between female athletes, female coaches, and female sports reporters.  I am also interested in discussing the trend in television with the amount of coverage for women sports.  In addition to coverage, I would like to discuss the stereotypes that are associated with women in sports.  This would include a survey taken by those willing to take the survey answering a couple of questions that covers how they feel about women in sports.  As a result, this ties back to the importance of Title IX and how it has fallen to the wayside in regards to creating an equal playing field for men and women. By creating this research paper, it ties into current events that have occurred with the women's soccer team and the lawsuit they have against the US soccer association due to the low salary they receive opposed to men's soccer.  It is something that is relevant, that occurs not just worldwide, but also on our very own campus.  The goal of this paper is to make people aware that both men and women should be treated equally in sports and inspire future students to take charge and continue to make a difference.