Research methods and applications

¶ … community sports center director has asked the committee to develop a research design for considering the possibility of adding two new sports to the programming agenda: archery and fencing. This paper presents the results of that effort.

Both of the considered sports have characteristics which place them outside of the mainstream of general community sports programming. They are considered to be elite sports, requiring years of skill formulation and practice. They imply some danger and incur some costs, both of which can serve as initial barriers to participation. However, due to their skill development, confidence-building, and conditioning benefits, both sports have positive impacts on self-esteem, which studies have shown is linked to more committed ongoing sports participation (Bowker, 2006).

Archery. Archery is considered to be a sport of high skill requirement. This is the key factor which the committee believes is necessary for study to determine the program offering's viability. The research question proposed is as follows:

Q1: How is the perception of a sport's difficulty related to the willingness of participants to engage in the sport?

The Hypothesis and Null Hypothesis are, as follows:

H21:

Holding a higher perception of a sport's difficulty level is more likely to lead to a participant being less willingness to engage in that sport.

H20:

There is no significant relationship between having a higher perception of a sport's difficulty level and having a lower willingness to participate.

The key consideration here will be the level of physical difficulty in terms of precision, strength, hand-eye coordination, and the like. These will be the variables utilized to study this question.

Fencing. Due to its long history as a cultured, elite sport, fencing can be been seen to have high entry costs in the form of equipment requirements and, especially, psychological barriers to participation among potential enthusiasts. In order to determine whether the sport is a viable option, therefore, the committee has determined that the social-psychological barrier to participation as a concern is the primary issue which must be resolved in order for support for the sport to be solidified. The research question which the committee proposes is as follows:

Q2: How does the perception of the "elite" nature of a sport affect the willingness of participants to engage in the sport?

This consideration leads to the development of the Hypothesis and the Null Hypothesis, as follows:

H21:

Holding a higher perception of a sport as an elite sport is more likely to lead a participant to have a lower willingness to engage in that sport.

H20:

There is no significant relationship between having a higher perception of a sport as elite and having a lower willingness to participate.

Here the key concerns will consist of social and cultural perceptions of a sport and how these impact on willingness to try the sport.