Problem/ Hypothesis

Many students in high school participate in sports teams throughout the school year. They may participate seasonally, or full time. The significance of this study is that we may find a bridge between sports and academics, whether negative or positive.

We have hypothesized that, surely the time dedicated to a sports team takes away from the time they could be working academically. We have posed the question, do sports teams affect the overall average mark of a high school student? We set out to find the answer. Our target group would be anyone from any grade (9-12) who participate actively in a sport. We would question them on their level of game play, hours dedicated to the sport weekly, and whether or not they believe their mark affects their final grade. We put the question out, and we were surprised by our findings.

We looked at our question and broke it down. We would like to know the affects of sports teams. A sport is defined as an active diversion requiring physical exertion and competition. We would have to make this clear, as to eliminate all misunderstandings. We are observing the effects on an athletes academics marks, or grade given to based on the amount of knowledge they are able to demonstrate, through the term. We believe that sports would be a big factor in the final grade, because of the amount of concentration on the school work.

Gather Data

9 10 11 12
# of Males 4 19 4
# of Females 3 3 26 3

Do they believe their involvement in Sports has had a negative impact on their averages?
Not A lot Somewhat Greatly N/A
23 20 12 9
Marks vs. Time Committed to Sports
1-3 Hours 4-6 Hours 7-10 Hours 11+ Hours
Below 50% 1 2
50%-60% 2 3 5
60%-70% 5 1 4 2
70%-80% 3 6 5 2
80%+ 7 6 2

Analysis of Data

Conclusions

From information gathered, it appears that a majority of students believe that their involvement in sports teams do not affect their overall academic. Over 16 students, some of which who commit of 11+ a weeks have reported to receive average greater than 70%, and 15 students with an average 80% and above, accounting for 56% of our test populace. This is quite surprising because total increased directly result in less time available for academic studies, but it appears students are finding adequate time to balance both aspects of their life. This correlates with the majority of students who also answered their involvement in sports a) “Not a lot” (36%) and somewhat (31%). To finalize, the information provided via this sample survey concludes in most cases, sport involvement on either school or other sport teams has minimal impact on students’ academic grade.

Improvements

It would obvious that from a logically perspective that increased sport involvement should negatively impact academic averages. There are two improvements we could implicate if the survey was done again. First, we could have asked a larger survey populace; We were only able to sample a total of 50-60 students, which may have skewed the information. Second, students may have fabricated their answers which also could have provided inaccurate data. The want for both athletic abilities and intelligence is a balance that many try to emulate; therefore while performing the survey in front of us, many of the people in which we knew, could have lied to avoid any form of judgment. To attempt to fix this problem, the use of a ballet box to increase anonymity as oppose to them handing it to us “face up” could be applied if ever done again.

4 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Post comment