Sociology

This is a sociology / social research question: Using the Patten Model Proposal (below the questions) answer the following (in some cases, the proposal might not make one or more of these items clear or achievable, and this should be noted in your critique)

* What is the Research hypothesis or question?

* What is the phenomenon (the who/what) they wish to study? This is the dependent variable.

* What do they predict will cause the dependent variable to go up or down? This is the independent variable.

* The theory behind the proposal (where did this idea come from; what questions encouraged proposal)?

* A description of the proposed research including method and population/sample?

* Method: How are they collecting their data? Are they conducting an experiment? Qualitative fieldwork? A survey (if yes, is it a phone, e-mail, handing out questionnaires)? Something else.

* Population: What group of individuals is being studied? Sample: Since we can rarely study an entire population, how do the researchers propose to get a smaller sample of this larger population?

* Would they fund this proposal?  Why or why not?  Be specific in your rationale
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Patten Model Proposal:

A Survey: Collegiate Athletic Trainers’ Knowledge and Perceptions of Disordered Eating Behaviors in Athletes1

A Research Proposal Based on the Work of
Amy Thompson, Debra Boardley, Faith Yingling, and Joan Rocks

Abstract

To assess athletic trainers’ perceptions and knowledge regarding disordered eating behaviors and to estimate their confidence in response to a test of knowledge, a cross-sectional mail questionnaire will be distributed to a national random sample of 500 athletic trainers from the National Collegiate Athletic Association and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. A 30-item questionnaire will assess perceptions of disordered eating behaviors within five domains. Opinions regarding the prevalence of disordered eating, athletic injury, and nutritional status, and their role in recognizing disordered eating will be assessed. Descriptive and inferential statistics will be used to analyze the results.

In the past few decades, awareness of the prevalence of disordered eating among college athletes and its effects on health and performance has increased. Current estimates of the prevalence of eating disorders in college athletes vary substantially and range from 1% to 62%, depending on the sport studied, the definition of disordered eating, and the assessment methods (Byrne & McLean, 2001; Reinking & Alexander, 2005). While disordered eating has been reported for both male and female athletes competing in a variety of sports, those competing in sports that emphasize leanness or appearance appear to show increased risk for development of disordered eating (Smolak, Murnen, & Ruble, 2000; Karlson, Becker, & Merkur, 2001).

Role of Athletic Programs

Collegiate athletic programs have been challenged to identify and manage eating disorders. A study by Turk, Prentice, Chappel, and Shields (1999) investigated collegiate coaches’ knowledge of disordered eating within five domains of etiology, identifying signs and symptoms, management and treatment, risk factors, and education and prevention. Also, the study assessed confidence coaches had in their responses to knowledge questions. Researchers found that although coaches may feel confident about educating or preventing eating disorders, they may be giving incorrect information to athletes.

A more recent study by Sherman, DeHass, Thompson, and Wilfert (2005) reported that most of the 2,894 coaches they surveyed rated symptoms of eating disorders as serious in terms of athletes’ health and performance. These authors observed that athletic trainers are also frequently involved in identification of eating disorders as athletic trainers work closely with both coaches and athletes. As certified members of a health-care team, they are involved in the medical supervision of athletes and are often the first to recognize signs of disordered eating.

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Research on athletic trainers and disordered eating is limited. One study investigated confidence of athletic trainers in helping athletes with disordered eating (Vaughn, King, & Cottrell, 2004). Although virtually all athletic trainers reported working with at least one female athlete with an eating disorder, only one in four felt confident identifying such a female athlete.

Purpose

The proposed investigation will assess athletic trainers’ perception and knowledge of eating disorders to compare results with those of the prior survey of collegiate coaches conducted by Turk et al. (1999). Data from athletic trainers may augment the findings from coaches and could be helpful in prevention and management of disordered eating by college athletes.

Method

Participants

A computerized random sample of 500 athletic trainers from the National Collegiate Athletic Association Divisions I, II, and III, and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics colleges across the United States will be mailed questionnaires. Names and addresses of athletic trainers will be randomly chosen from the Blue Book of College Athletics for Senior, Junior, and Community Colleges (Beagley, 2000) using a random-number procedure.

Several techniques will be used to increase the response rate: a $1 incentive; a postage-paid, self- addressed, return envelope; a hand-signed cover letter assuring confidentiality; and use of colored paper (King, Pealer, & Bernard, 2000). Coding will be used to track returns and facilitate follow-up. Approximately two weeks after the initial mailing, a second mailing will be sent to nonrespondents with a second cover letter, another copy of the questionnaire, and a postage-paid return envelope.

Prior to the mailing of the questionnaire, approval will be sought from the university’s human subjects committee.

Instrumentation

The survey conducted by Turk et al. (1999) measured coaches’ knowledge about disordered eating by their athletes. The questionnaire used in the study by Turk et al. will be adapted slightly to measure such knowledge among athletic trainers. Specifically, the 30 knowledge and confidence items will be modified by substitution of the words “athletic trainer” for “coach.”

Turk et al. reported the questionnaire had been reviewed for content validity by 11 experts in athletic training, exercise physiology, nutrition, psychiatry, sports administration, sports psychology, sports science, and sports medicine. Also, 10 coaches examined the items.

After a comprehensive review of eating disorder literature, additional questions may be added to assess opinions regarding disordered eating and the role of athletic trainers in dealing with

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disordered eating in athletes. Also, questions will be added to gather demographic information about access to programming and educational materials for prevention of disordered eating.

The modified questionnaire will be sent to experts in nutrition, athletic training, exercise science, and psychology for critical comments and feedback on the content validity of the items. The feedback may lead to refinements in the wording of some items.

This process will yield a questionnaire consisting of approximately 50 items on knowledge, confidence in the correctness of each answer, attitudes of the trainers, and demographic data. As in the Turk et al. survey (1999), knowledge will be divided into five sections about specific aspects of disordered eating. Each section will contain six true-false statements about knowledge in the following areas: etiology, identification of potential risk factors, prevention and education, and management and treatment of disordered eating. In addition, athletic trainers will be asked to rate their confidence in their response to each true-false statement on a 4-item Likert scale on which verbal labels will be 1: Not at all confident and 4: Very confident.

The second section of the questionnaire will focus on attitudes toward statements regarding the prevalence of disordered eating among athletes, the role of nutrition in athletic injury, and the athletic trainer’s role in the recognition and prevention of disordered eating among athletes. Verbal labels for responses will range from 1: Strongly disagree to 5: Strongly agree.

To estimate stability/reliability, the questionnaire will be distributed twice to a convenience sample of 20 student athletic trainers. The value of the test-retest reliability coefficient will be calculated.

Analysis

First, the response rate (i.e., the percentage of completed questionnaires) will be calculated for the total sample as well as separately for men and women.

Second, the number of correct responses and the percentage correct for each participant in each of the five knowledge domains will be determined. For instance, if a participant marks five of the six Risk Factors knowledge items correctly, he or she will have a percentage correct of 83.3%. The mean percentage correct for all participants in each domain will then be calculated and reported in a table such as Table K2. Likewise, the average percentages of incorrect answers will be calculated and reported.

Third, for each knowledge item, each participant will indicate his or her confidence in the answer on a scale from 1: Not at all confident to 4: Very confident. The mean confidence ratings will be calculated separately for correct and incorrect answers and will also be reported in the table. These means will provide valuable information for use in interpretation of the results. For instance, a high mean percentage correct in a knowledge domain accompanied by a high mean confidence rating would have a very different interpretation from a high mean percentage correct in the knowledge domain accompanied by a low mean confidence rating.

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Fourth, the results on the knowledge questions in this study with athletic trainers will be compared with the results of Turk et al.’s earlier study of college coaches. This will be done by comparing the percentage of participants in each study who scored between 90% and 100% correct on all knowledge items.

Table K2 Athletic Trainers’ Knowledge and Confidence Score* by Domain

Note
* Confidence scores report how confident respondents were with the answers to knowledge questions. Each knowledge question will be followed by a confidence ranking using verbal labels for ratings of 1: Not at all confident and 4: Very confident.

Fifth, the following analyses will be conducted to provide additional insights. In each case, the difference between the total mean knowledge scores for the two groups will be tested with t tests with p equal to or less than .05:

Mean knowledge scores of men versus women.

Mean knowledge scores of participants who attended an educational program within the past year versus those who had not done so.

Mean knowledge scores of participants who had three or more educational resources on disordered eating (e.g., videos) versus those who did not.

Discussion

This study will provide valuable information on the educational needs of athletic trainers at the college level. Because knowledge in five different knowledge domains will be measured separately, the information will be diagnostic (e.g., more emphasis in one knowledge domain might be needed than in another domain in future educational programs for athletic trainers). Limitations

Three limitations are worthy of note. First, this study will be limited to certified athletic trainers, so it will not be appropriate to generalize the results to trainers who are not certified.

Second, as with almost all mailed questionnaires in the social sciences, a response rate of less than 100% is anticipated. However, due to the $1 incentive and the follow-up mailing, a high

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rate of return is anticipated. Nevertheless, great caution should be exercised when attempting to generalize to nonrespondents.

Finally, the closed format of the questionnaire will not provide room for participants to express themselves in their own words or to comment on their educational needs on disordered eating. This limitation might be addressed in future studies.

Note

1. This proposal was adapted from a report of completed research by Thompson, A., Yingling, F., Boardley, D., & Rocks, J. (2007). Collegiate athletic trainers’ knowledge and perceptions of disordered eating behaviors in athletes. Psychological Reports, 101, 1173–1178. Copyright © 2007 by Psychological Reports. Reprinted with permission.

References

Beagley, C. (Ed.). (2000). The 2000–2001 blue book of college athletics for senior, junior, and community colleges. Montgomery, AL: Dees Communications.

Byrne, S., & McLean, N. (2001). Eating disorder in athletes: A review of the literature. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 4, 145–159.

Karlson, K. A., Becker, C. B., & Merkur, A. (2001). Prevalence of eating disordered behavior in collegiate lightweight women rowers and distance runners. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 11, 32–37.

King, K., Pealer, L., & Bernard, A. (2000). Increasing response rate to mail questionnaires: A review of inducement strategies. American Journal of Health Education, 32, 4–15.

Reinking, M. F., & Alexander, L. E. (2005). Prevalence of disordered eating behaviors in undergraduate female collegiate athletes and nonathletes. Journal of Athletic Training, 40, 47– 51.

Sherman, R. T., DeHass, D., Thompson, R. A., & Wilfert, M. (2005). NCAA coaches survey: The role of the coach in identifying and managing athletes with disordered eating. Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention, 13, 447–466.

Smolak, L., Murnen, S. K., & Ruble, A. E. (2000). Female athletes and eating problems: A meta- analysis. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 27, 371–380.

Turk, J. C., Prentice, W. E., Chappel, S., & Shields, E. W. (1999). Collegiate coaches’ knowledge of eating disorders. Journal of Athletic Training, 34, 19–24.

Vaughn, J. L., King, K. A., & Cottrell, R. R. (2004). Collegiate athletic trainers’ confidence in helping females with eating disorders. Journal of Athletic Training, 39, 71–76.