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Abstract

A large number of individuals are involved in athletics, sometimes beginning during childhood. Many studies have found that athletics offer various benefits. One of these benefits seems to be that those involved tend to have a healthy self-concept. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationship between the number of years people might be involved in youth athletics and their adult self-concept. The number of years the individuals were involved and levels of self-concept were studied in 38 subjects all of whom were college students attending a university in the Southeastern United States. These subjects used the SPPCS to determine their level of self-concept. It was hypothesized that there would be a positive correlation between the number of years in athletics as a youth and adult self-concept.

This is the abstract of a research proposal. It is written in past tense, even though the data haven’t been collected.

The Relationship between Number of Years in

Youth Athletics and Adult Self-concept

Self-concept affects various areas of an adult’s life. This fact is widely accepted in the field of psychology. Athletics are believed to play a role in self-concept, in that athletics have some affect upon it. Generally this effect is a positive one, although the exact degree that athletics affects self-concept is debatable. Various studies have researched these concepts both separately and together and the results vary.

Self-concept is an awareness of physical and psychological individuality (Keltinkingas-Jarvinen, 1990). It plays a primary role in many psychological functions. It has an effect on individuals’ self-perceptions and their perceptions of other people (Rauste-v Wright, 1987). Self-concept also regulates goal setting and achievements (Dusek & Flaherty, 1981), social cognition, and causal thinking (Watkins & Astille, 1979). A positive self-concept is associated with a high level of school achievement (Keltinkingas-Jarvinen, submitted for publication), psychic stability, and ego strength (Kawash, 1982); a negative self-concept, with school failure (Rauste-v Wright, 1987), dropout (Keltinkingas-Jarvinen, submitted for publication) and situation-specific anxiety (Coopersmith, 1967). Thus self-concept is an important asset to all individuals.

Once you have built a case for the importance of your first concept, then you include a transitional paragraph to your next concept, and review that relevant literature.

According to the studies that have been reviewed, self-concept does have a large impact upon individuals. It is beneficial to have a high self-concept. Athletics are also highly beneficial to an individual. There are numerous ways in which an individual can benefit from physical activity and more specifically from athletics.

An example of ways that athletics can positively affect an individual was found in a recent article by Rhea (1998) who speculated that a high quality athletic program should allow high school students to take much more with them, following graduation, than a letter. She felt that it is key that the capabilities and successes of female athletes’ roles, specifically, promoted diverse body images and built confidence in female youths. It is important for female adolescents to recognize that participants with bodies of different sizes and shapes can be successful and …

Now that you have reviewed the relevant literature, you very briefly restate your main idea and offer the hypothesis you are planning to investigate

After review of this literature, it can be concluded that having a positive self-concept is ideal for all individuals. There are various ways in which self-concept is expressed. It is, however, difficult to determine how it is achieved. Athletics is also seen to play an important role in attaining body esteem, in academic achievement, in anxiety reduction, along with various other benefits.

Self-concept is a relatively broad definition of the construct that includes cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects; self esteem is thought to be a more limited evaluative component of the broader self-concept term (Blascovich & Tomaka, 1991; Wells & Marwell, 1976). Despite the claims that support the distinctiveness of self-concept and self-esteem, construct validity research to date has been unsuccessful in providing empirical evidence of such discriminability. (Marsh, 1986; Shepard, 1979). This reconfirms the fact that these words can, and they will, be used interchangeably in this study as they have been in various other studies (Hughes, 1984).

In the present study, the effect of athletics on adult self-concept specifically was investigated by comparing the number of years one was involved in youth athletics to a self-concept score. Although there seem to be benefits of a child being involved in athletics, do these benefits, specifically in the area of higher self-concept, carry through into adulthood? In this study it was hypothesized that the number of years in youth athletics would correlate with the self-concept scores. It was also hypothesized that with more years of participation in youth athletics, the adults’ self-concept scores will be higher. This may indicate that involving children and adolescents in athletics may improve their adult levels of self-concept.

NOTE: large portions of this actual paper have been deleted. Therefore, there are many more references listed in the Reference section than you will find in the actual text. Be sure to include everything you cite in the text.

Method

Participants

A sample of thirty-five students attending a private university located in the Southeastern United States were asked to participate. The participants ranged in age from seventeen to twenty-three. The students were enrolled in a developmental psychology course. All students enrolled in the classes who chose to participate were allowed to replace an existing poor homework score or just boost their homework average. Participants were all given an informed consent (see Appendix A), and assured of anonymity.

Note: If the paper is merely proposing to do a study, all of this method section is in future tense,i.e., "subjects will be…" . If the study is completed, all of this method section is in the past tense.

Instruments

The Self-Perception Profile for College Students (SPPCS) was used to evaluate self-concept (Nemann & Harter, 1986). This test was chosen because it was designed to fill an important instrument void that has existed between the measurement of the self-concepts of adolescents and of adults. College students are often regarded as adults. Legally, however, they do straddle a boundary between adolescence and adulthood. They often live away from home but are not always working full time and normally are not responsible for the nurturance of others or for the management of a household as many adults are. This is the reason that the Self-Perception Profile for College Students was designed as a multidimensional scale that consists of sub-scales which were designed to research important areas of the lives of a college population (Byrne, 1996). This test drew heavily from three other Self-Perception Profiles designed to measure preadolescent (Harter, 1985), adolescent (Harter, 1988), and adult (Messer & Harter, 1986) self-concepts.

The SPPCS was designed for specific use with full-time undergraduate college students with ages ranging from seventeen to twenty-three. Neeman & Harter (1986) suggested that it would also be useful in testing older, single full-time undergraduate students, as well as graduate students. For other non-traditional students, the Adult Self-Perception Profile is suggested.

The SPPCS is a fifty-four item self-report scale that comprised 13 sub-scales. Twelve of these sub-scales are designed to measure self-perceptions that relate to specific domains of one’s life, and one scale taps perception of self in general which is known as Global Self-Worth. Neeman and Harter (1986) noted that all items are based on a four point structured alternative format so that socially desirable responding will be offset.

The second form students were asked to complete was a demographic questionnaire (see Appendix B). This was used in order to determine each student’s age and number of years in athletics.

Procedures

In order to administer this test, the instructor for each of the classes was contacted prior to the beginning of the semester to allow the instructor to incorporate participation into the semester schedule. Permission to participate during class time and to replace a missed homework or poor homework grade was obtained from the instructor. The students were then asked to stay until the end of class regardless of when they completed the surveys.

First the consent form was distributed by their instructor. Secondly the Self-Perception Profile for College Students was given. This took about 30 minutes to complete. Once this wass completed the general information questionnaire was distributed and when that wass completed, the students turned in all three of these things at the same time.

The sample Method section was in the past tense, as in a completed study. The Results are only predicted in the future tense, as in a proposal.

Results

It is predicted that there will be a significant relationship between the number of years individuals had been involved in youth athletics and their self-concept scores in adulthood . It is also predicted that more years of athletic participation will correlate with higher self-concept scores.

Should you actually want to collect some data and analyze it, these next two pages show the format for tables and figures. Pay particular attention to the headings for each.

Table 1

The relationship between number of years in youth athletics

and self-concept scores