Cheating Within Collegiate Sports

Definition of Terms and Abbreviations

Qualitative Data - Qualitative analysis is not simply looking for quotes/ideas etc. that support or relate to an idea or argument

Moral Disengagement - is a term from social psychology for the process of convincing the self that ethical standards do not apply to oneself in a particular context.

Conceptual Framework – A model and description of what the study is going to be

Delimitations – Limits that are set around what a researcher can control

Limitations – These are influences that the researcher cannot control

Controlled Variable – A variable that is constant throughout the entire research

Independent Variable – A variable that is manipulated to cause a change in the dependent variable

Dependent Variable – A variable that is measured to see if it can be affected by the independent variable

Cheating - Cheating in sports is the intentional breaking of rules in order to obtain an advantage over the other teams or players.

Introduction

Background

All throughout the history of collegiate sports, athletes and coaches have cheated in some sort of manner to gain an advantage on their opponent. Cheating most often comes down to win or gain an advantage on their opponent by performing certain task. (Sukys, 2013) There have been multiple collegiate scandals that are well known in the three major sports of basketball, football, and baseball. Cheating can be anything from abusing equipment to be in your favor and down to paying recruits to come to your school over another. One of the major ways to cheat that is well known throughout the world is the use of steroids or any performance enhancing drug.

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Preliminary Review of the Literature

There are two major examples that the general population and average sport fan know about within collegiate sports. The first being the University of Louisville and their basketball team. Louisville famously paid their recruits to come to their school. They have been proven to give a specific recruit $100,000 to come to their school and to set his family up for anything they want. Also, the school had a major sex scandal accusing them of hiring strippers and prostitutes to sleep with the recruits to show them they have a “good time”. This scandal forced the Louisville Cardinals to vacate 123 wins over the span of 5 years, and included tournament appearances and even the 2013 NCAA Championship. The second famous scandal

Conceptual Framework

This research proposal will look at the different themes and character of collegiate athletes. The idea is to see how a person reacts to a certain scenario on a given question and see their response. What it all ties into is cheating in the end. And, the steps to get there are made through winning, losing, and how the parents raised the kids. Also, that will then transition into the morals the athletes have. Money is a factor when it comes to cheating as well because the more you win or lose you are going to want to sustain that culture or improve it.

Research Question

The research question is “Cheating within collegiate sports: Why does it happen?”

Purpose

The purpose of this research proposal was to reveal the dependence of what the athletes consider cheating in their sport activities. Also, the moral disengagement in sport considering their personal factors.

Hypothesis

I hypothesized that moral disengagement would show that the athletes are more favorable to cheating in sports of any kind. Furthermore, I hypothesized that cheating in sport wouldn’t be linked to sport experience as much as it would be to gender.

Delimitations

The participants will be current athletes that are age 18-25. The questionnaire will take place in a comfortable environment where they can give their honest opinions. Also, participants will take part in a semi-controlled questionnaire that will ask them specific questions but also have open ended questions to give their view of cheating on different scenarios.

Limitations

A few of the limitations would be limited responses from the players as a whole. They might not want to risk answering questions about cheating if they are doing the same thing currently. Also, there could be a lack of interest from athletes because they are so busy and don’t want to stop their day to do a questionnaire. Lastly, the biggest limitation is lying on a question. Anyone can put on a smile and lie on the questionnaire, plus there isn’t the raw emotion of being in a game and the adrenaline that comes with it.

Significance

[bookmark: _Toc18478404]The significance of this study is to show the difference of what an athlete considers cheating and what they think is okay to do in their respective sport. Also, it will show how the level of completion in sport factors into how the athletes view cheating. Some athletes may not have played their entire lives so they view cheating differently than someone that has been playing a long time. Another major significance of this study is for other coaches and teams to be able to view what is considered cheating in the athlete’s eyes and what they can get away with.

Design

The study will be done through a questionnaire in three sections. First, the section will include level of completion, sport, and gender. With the other sections assessing athletes and how they view cheating within sport. The study will also be using a moral scale that rates from 1 to 8 from strongly agreeing to strongly disagreeing.

Data Analysis

The data that I will conduct will be from a qualitative viewpoint. I will look at their provided answers on the questionnaire to look at common themes that show with justification of cheating within sport. Also, I will be able to see the relationship between the moral disengagement, personal factors, and level of completion within their respective sport. After that, I will look at transcribing and interpreting the data and pick out any common themes and ideas that came up multiple times. Through finding the common themes and behavior, we will be able to decide how a certain group of people view cheating within sport.

References

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