Where did I start?

• Survey & Interview

  • Why these methods?
    • My overall research goal is to compare descriptions of college athletes between:
      • Self
      • Media
      • Institution
      • Fan*
    • I already have a data set collected from web pages of the universities (institutions) that describe these players.  I’m utilizing past research (from other authors) involving media description.  I put an asterisk by fan because I actually hadn’t developed the intent to study that group’s descriptions until midway through this semester.  For this class, I wanted to gather data on the athletes’ self descriptions.  Therefore, I felt interview and survey would best accomplish that objective.
  • Who to survey/interview? Current male college basketball players on a team that participated in the 2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament (see Appendix A)
  • Why this group? I wanted top level players and this was the same group that I had assembled data for a content analysis
  • Methods of contact? Twitter,* Phone, Mail, Email
  • Problems
    • Getting contact information is laborious
    • Even when I assembled some contact information and reached out, nobody was interested in taking the survey.*  I realized very quickly that to get roughly 30 respondents I would need to spend about 300 hours getting contact information and making an effort to reach these people.
      • *One player out of about 50 expressed interest although I never checked to see if he went through on it
      • *This disinterest was surprising because when I tested the survey for functionality among a group of my friends, I received about a dozen willing responses and submissions from a single plea at about 11pm one night.  It showed that people are more willing to take a survey for certain reasons (help a friend) and are perhaps skittish for other reasons (paranoid of my motives or just plain lazy).
  • Causes for Problems
    • Limited respondent pool
    • Limited ability to access information (required willing persons to actively participate)
  • Other meaningful points of concern
    • Initially, I had limited my respondent pool to college basketball players.  This was not a good idea for the fall semester because it is during basketball season.  I wanted to do this project on those players, though, because the finished article would have come out around March when college basketball popularity was peaking.
    • Initially, I planned to do the interviews in-person.  This was not a good idea because the players are very busy.  Plus, it simply adds an unnecessary limitation on geographic reach.

• Content Analysis

  • Why this method? See above, and this is my way of accessing institutional (university) descriptions of college athletes
  • Who is involved? Current male college basketball players on a team that participated in the 2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament (see Appendix A)
  • Why this group? I wanted top level players and this was an available (and popular) group
  • Method of content? Data mining public web sites
  • Problems: I haven’t really found any yet!
    • Data was easy and convenient to access
    • Went nicely into a spreadsheet for analysis (height, race, academic class and major, number of family members listed, etc.) and also includes narratives to analyze
    • Opportunities that came from this:
      • I’m looking at other web content to analyze (e.g. news articles)
      • Examining news articles allows me to delve further into media descriptions and not rely on others’ research
      • Online news articles opened the door to studying fans’ (definition of “fan” pending) descriptions
      • Ultimately, this is helping me define my research objective more clearly.

• Upgrading My Approach

  • I need to get more respondents/subjects/data for my research.
    • I submitted this to IRB:
      • I would like to make some revisions to my IRB Application #x10-768. My original application was determined exempt.  I believe the following adjustments would not affect the exempt status, as the modifications do not go against the original intent of the research: comparing descriptions of collegiate athletes.
    • I need to expand the group under study.  I submitted this to IRB:
      • Initially, I planned to study any “individual athlete on a team that participated in the 2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament” however I believe that unnecessarily limits my response pool.  I  propose the revision to include “any individual athlete on a team that participated as a member of the NCAA.”  The list of NCAA teams and universities can be found here http://web1.ncaa.org/onlineDir/exec/divisionListing
    • I need to gain easier access to the group under study.  I submitted this to IRB:
      • Initially, I stated “in-person interviews will be held in a closed classroom.”  However, I believe that unnecessarily limits my interview venue options.  I propose the revision to include “held in a closed classroom or by phone.”  This will not conflict or otherwise alter the main elements of the prior classroom limitation in that the following remains: privacy and confidentiality.
    • I need to expand the range of data (content for analysis) I can collect in this study.  I submitted this to IRB:
      • Initially, I planned to perform content analysis on the public web pages listed on my application.  Those web sites were public and presented by the university.  I believe this unnecessarily limits the content.  I propose the revision to include “any public web site with a description of the athlete.  Particularly, I will collect content from major news sources (NY Times, USA Today, campus newspapers online, Twitter, etc.).  These are public web sites and provide descriptions of athletes.  I will use content analysis on these web pages in the same manner as I will analyze the content on the universities’ web pages.”
    • I needed to be polite and clear to IRB so I closed with this:
      • Thank you for considering these revisions.  Again, I do not believe these to be in conflict with the original exempt status nor do I feel they change the confidentiality, anonymity, focus, intent, or any other element as was presented in the initial application.  The revisions are only to meant to assist in accomplishing and to clarity the original research objective stated in the IRB application. Respectfully submitted, John Girdwood

• Where do I go from here?

  • My overall research goal is still to compare descriptions of college athletes between:
    • Self
    • Media
    • Institution*
    • Fan**
  • *My approach to studying institutional descriptions (university web pages) hasn’t changed although now I can include more sports like football
  • **I’m developing new approaching to studying “fan” descriptions including doing content analysis on the comments that are left on public media web sites.
  • I’m utilizing my previous contact methods (e.g. Twitter) to actually perform added content analysis.  To streamline my data collection, when I contact a player by Twitter to ask him to take my survey, I’m adding him to a list that I can then go back and analyze that group’s and individuals’ tweets.
  • I’m creating my own research on media descriptions which I can then compare to previous research and look for connections and gaps.  Prior research is mostly based on TV and newspaper descriptions.  There is not much research on new media.  Particularly, I’m looking at standard media using new media.  For example, a printed newspaper online (allows for reader comments, how that changes the descriptions potentially).  Also, standard mass media sports writers are on Twitter.  Do their descriptions change (are they different) between Twitter and their printed column in standard media?