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Ncaa And Gender Equity: A Comparison Of The Men's And Women's Ncaa March Madness Tournament, Margarita E. Moreno

Whittier Scholars Program

This literature review examines how female athletes were treated during the NCAA March Madness Tournament in 2021 and examines the overall inequalities of female athletes within the NCAA. In 2021 Women's basketball was under the spotlight when female athletes started to shed light on these trends via social media apps like TikTok, sharing the inequalities they experienced during the March Madness tournament. This article conducts a comparative analysis of the men's and women's tournaments from 2021 while exploring the Gender Equity Review Phase I report conducted by Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP. The gender equity review revealed that the planning …

The Dunning-Kruger Effect On Free Throw Shooting, Abigail Schescke, Nicolas Veldhorst, Makayla De Young

Student Work

This study examines the Dunning-Kruger effect in regards to physical activity. Seventy-four participants with various levels of basketball experience were recruited from an undergraduate university. Participants were assigned to make predictions regarding the number of free throw shots they would make out of ten before or after warming up. Out of factors which affected participant predictions (gender, previous experience, warm up group), gender was found to have a significant relationship with predictive error score. Additionally, underconfidence from top-performing participants and overconfidence from bottom-performing participants indicates the presence of the Dunning-Kruger effect in physical tasks.

Psychological Factors Of Athletes And Preference For Competition Against Opponents Who Differ In Relative Standing, Emily Lorry

Psychology Honors Papers

Sports and competition are a large part of most cultures across the globe and their popularity only appears to be increasing. Athletic competition is increasingly becoming more about winning, results, and performance and much less about having fun. Professional athletes are no longer the only competitors facing extreme pressure to perform. Collegiate athletes and youth athletes are expected to perform at their best to earn titles for their program or scholarships to universities. Although it is becoming more common for athletes to speak about their personal struggles regarding mental health and performance anxiety, there is little to no change in …

Why The Binary?: Cisnormativity In Athletics, Iliana Smiser

Audre Lorde Writing Prize

This paper examines the cisnormative environment created by men's and women's labeled sports, and how claims often used to exclude transgender, non binary, and intersex athletes are disproved by psychology and physiology. It also discusses the NCAA's current policies on the inclusion of transgender, non binary, and intersex athletes.

Virtual Games Meet Physical Playground: Exploring And Measuring Motivations For Live Esports Event Attendance, Haozhou Pu

Health and Sport Science Faculty Publications

The spectacular rise of esports and its live events have drawn increasing interests from sport and leisure studies. Little information, however, is known on motives behind spectators’ attendance of esports events. Based on a mixed-method design consisting of data collected in cross-cultural settings, we developed and validated an eight-factor measurement scale related to the motives of attending live esports events. In this study, we contend that esports event creates a space where virtual and physical experience are mutually constituted. While motives found in traditional sports and event research are present in the current study, motives unique to esports events are …

Beyond Hours Of Video Gameplay: Connections Between Verbal Aggressiveness, Genre Preference, And Technology Used, William T. Howe, Ioana A. Cionea

Communication Faculty Publications

This research examined how multiple factors (i.e., hours of gameplay, types of gameplay, preferred genre of video games, technology used to play games, and biological sex) were associated with both trait and situational verbal aggressiveness. Cross-sectional data were collected from 435 undergraduate students via an online questionnaire. Results indicated similar patterns to previous literature in that video gameplay hours were positively related to verbal aggressiveness. However, we extended research by also showing that a preference for certain genres and technology used to play video games were also related with both situational and trait verbal aggressiveness. Based on these results, we …

Incivility In The Workplace: The Experiences Of Female Sport Management Faculty In Higher Education, Elizabeth A. Taylor, Robin Hardin, Natalie Welch, Allison B. Smith

Faculty Publications

Access to higher education for women has dramatically increased in the United States during the past 50 years. Female college graduates have reversed the figures and gone from being outnumbered by their male counterparts 3 to 2 in the 1970s, to now outnumbering male college graduates 3 to 2. Women also graduate from masters and doctoral programs at a higher rate than men.

However, increases in the number of women obtaining college and advanced degrees has not translated to comparable representation in faculty positions or leadership roles in higher education. This lack of women in leadership positions, as well as …

Podium Girls: Time To End The Tradition, Emily J. Houghton

Human Performance Department Publications

Recently, organizers of the professional cycling event the Tour Down Under made the decision to eliminate “podium girls” and replace them with male junior riders on the men’s tour, thereby breaking from the tradition of other major professional cycling events like the Tour De France, Vuelta a Espana and Giro D’Italia. Podium girls are a highly visible component of the awards ceremony at the conclusion of bike races. The women are often impeccably dressed in matching outfits while presenting winners with prizes, flowers and kisses on the cheek. The role of podium girls and, in some instances, podium boys provides …

Lowering The Rims Roundtable: A Move For Equality?, Emily J. Houghton

Human Performance Department Publications

Part of a blog post from April 15, 2016 titled Lowering the Rims Roundtable: A Move for Equality in which Dr. Houghton wrote a portion to add to the discussion on whether or not women's basketball should lower the rims in order to allow for more dunking. The entire blog post as posted by Mountaineer in the blog The Rabbit Hole can be viewed at http://cszto.blogspot.com/2016/04/lowering-rims-roundtable-move-for.html

Performing Gender Through Bowling, Or, "I Was In Shock Other Girls Could Bowl", Eleanor Ann Hasken

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this thesis, I explore how bowling frames a gendered understanding of the world. I examine style, ball weight, and relationships, and others areas to discuss the ramifications of a binary understanding of gender as it is conceived in bowling centers. To complete this examination, I use interviews and personal observations from a year of fieldwork in Louisville and Bowling Green, Kentucky. I also rely on my personal experiences with the sport to provide contextual information. Drawing primarily on scholarship from Judith Butler, Richard Bauman, and Ann K. Ferrell, I theorize about gendered performances occurring in the bowling center. These …

Assessing Ncaa Division Ii Student Athlete Perceptions Of Gender Bias And Cultural Competence In Health Care, Emily J. Houghton, Carrie Meyer, Missy Thompson

Human Performance Department Publications

No abstract provided.

Head Impact Exposure In Male And Female Collegiate Ice Hockey Players, Bethany J. Wilcox, Jonathan G. Beckwith, Richard M. Greenwald, Jeffrey J. Chu, Thomas W. Mcallister, Laura A. Flashman, Arthur C. Maerlender, Ann-Christine Duhaime, Joseph J. Crisco

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to quantify head impact exposure (frequency, location and magnitude of head impacts) for individual male and female collegiate ice hockey players and to investigate differences in exposure by sex, player position, session type, and team. Ninety-nine (41 male, 58 female) players were enrolled and 37,411 impacts were recorded over three seasons. Frequency of impacts varied significantly by sex (males: 287 per season, females: 170, p < 0.001) and helmet impact location (p < 0.001) but not by player position (p = 0.088). Head impact frequency also varied by session type; both male and female players sustained more impacts in games than in practices (p < 0.001), however the magnitude of impacts did not differ between session types. There was no difference in 95th percentile peak linear acceleration between sexes (males: 41.6 g, females: 40.8 g), but 95th percentile peak rotational acceleration and HITsp (a composite severity measure) were greater for males than females (4424, 3409 rad/s2, and 25.6, 22.3, respectively). Impacts to the back of the helmet resulted in the greatest 95th percentile peak linear accelerations for males (45.2 g) and females (50.4 g), while impacts to the side and back of the head were associated with the greatest 95th percentile peak rotational accelerations (males: 4719, 4256 rad/sec², females: 3567, 3784 rad/sec², respectively). It has been proposed that reducing an individual’s head impact exposure is a practical approach for reducing the risk of …

Assessing The "Goodness Of Fit" Between Scholarly Assertions And Audience Interpretations Of Media Images Of Black Male Athletes, Emily J. Houghton

Human Performance Department Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine the "goodness of fit" in sport media research, specifically how audiences interpret media images of Black male athletes and the ways in which their interpretations "fit" with scholarly assertions pertaining to racially marked media depictions. Participants in the study (n=36) were part of eight focus groups segmented by age, gender and race. They viewed and discussed mainstream media images of Black male athletes found on major American sport media websites (ESPN.com and SI.com). The images corresponded with five categories of representation found in the literature: highly competent/natural athlete, exotic savage, deviant, emotionally …

Discrimination Inward And Upward: Lessons On Law And Social Inequality From The Troubling Case Of Women Coaches, Deborah L. Brake

Articles

In the Title IX success story, women’s opportunities in coaching jobs have not kept pace with the striking gains made by female athletes. Women’s share of jobs coaching female athletes has declined substantially in the years since the law was enacted, moving from more than 90% to below 43% today. As a case study, the situation of women coaches contains important lessons about the ability of discrimination law to promote social equality. This article highlights one feature of bias against women coaches — gender bias by female athletes — as a counter-paradigm that presents a challenge to the dominant frame …

Sport And Masculinity: The Promise And Limits Of Title Ix, Deborah Brake

Book Chapters

This paper uses the lens of masculinities theory to examine the connections between sport and masculinity and considers how law both reinforces and intervenes in sport’s production of masculinity. The paper urges moving beyond a "women vs. men" framework for examining gender equality in sport to include critical study of sport’s relationship to masculinities. The primary law examined in this chapter is Title IX of the Education Amendments in 1972, which is widely (and properly) credited with the explosive growth of women’s sports in the intervening decades. While Title IX has greatly expanded the range of culturally valued femininities for …

The 2010 Racial And Gender Report Card: National Basketball Association, Richard Lapchick, Christopher Kaiser, Christina Russell, Natalie Welch

Faculty Publications

The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida publishes the Racial and Gender Report Card to indicate areas of improvement, stagnation, and regression in the racial and gender composition of professional and college sports personnel and to contribute to the improvement of integration in front office and college athletics department positions. Each year the National Basketball Association (NBA) has made progress in almost all categories examined for both race and gender.

The NBA continues to set the standard for the industry as the leader on issues related to race and gender hiring practices. …

The Heart Of The Game: Putting Race And Educational Equity At The Center Of Title Ix, Deborah L. Brake, Verna L. Williams

Articles

This article examines how race and educational equity issues shape women's sports experiences, building upon the narrative of Darnellia Russell, a high school basketball player profiled in the documentary The Heart of the Game. Darnellia is a star player who, because of an unintended pregnancy, has to fight to play the game she loves.

This girl's story provides a unique and underutilized lens through which to examine gender and athletics, as well as evaluate the legal framework for gender equality in sport. In focusing on this narrative, we seek to give voice to black female athletes and to express their …

The Struggle For Sex Equality In Sport And The Theory Behind Title Ix, Deborah Brake

Articles

Title IX's three-part test for measuring discrimination in the provision of athletic opportunities to male and female students has generated heated controversy in recent years. In this Article, Professor Brake discusses the theoretical underpinnings behind the three-part test and offers a comprehensive justification of this theory as applied to the context of sport. She begins with an analysis of the test's relationship to other areas of sex discrimination law, concluding that, unlike most contexts, Title IX rejects formal equality as its guiding theory, adopting instead an approach that focuses on the institutional structures that subordinate girls and women in sport. …