DOI: 10.3886/icpsr33661.v1
title: Athletic Involvement Study (of Students in a Northeastern University in the United States), 2006
title: Version 1

description: The Athletic Involvement Study interviewed 795 students in a large public university in the Northeastern United States to explore how or if participation in sports affects people's health-risk behavior. About a quarter of the sample did not report any participation in a sport during high school or college and no primary sport designation. For those who did identify with a sport there were five predictor areas of interest: (1) scales measuring strength of jock identity; (2) strength of athlete identity; (3) goal orientation in sport; (4) primary sport ratings; and (5) conformity to masculine norms.
description: The two major purposes of this study were to:

Develop comprehensive measures of athletic involvement.
Examine links among athletic involvement, gender norms, health risks, substance use, and sexual activity.
description: Undergraduates enrolled in seven large-section, lower-level Sociology, Communications, and Economics courses at a large university in the northeastern United States were invited to complete a 45-minute anonymous questionnaire. Each participant received $10.00 compensation. In the case of the Communications students, the study also counted for research credit that could be applied toward fulfillment of a course requirement.
Two mechanisms were employed for distribution and collection of questionnaires. Approximately half were administered in a classroom setting, with enrolled students informed in advance that they had the option of skipping the class if they chose not to take part in the study. The remaining participants were recruited with brief in-class announcements inviting them to e-mail the research team to indicate their interest, whereupon they were sent a copy of the questionnaire form via e-mail. Participants then completed the questionnaire independently and returned it to the research team as directed.Informed consent was secured from all participants and the study protocol was approved by the university's Social and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board.
description: Response Rates: Approximately 1,500 students were invited to participate. A total of 795 students returned completed questionnaires for a response rate of 53 percent.
description: Presence of Common Scales: 
Task and Ego Orientation in Sports Questionnaire (TEOSQ), Duda (1989)
Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (CMNI), Mahalik et. al (2003)
Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), Radloff (1977)
description: Datasets: 
DS1: Athletic Involvement Study (of Students in a Northeastern University in the United States), 2006
description: Undergraduate male and female students age 18 or older, enrolled in introductory level classes at a single large public university in the Northeastern United States.
description: self-enumerated questionnaire; on-site questionnaireTo help protect the confidentialty of the students who participated in the study, the following three variables were recoded.

AGE: Top-coded at "24 or More"
RACE: American Indians / Native Americans were combined with the "Other" category
RELIGION: Muslims and Buddhists were combined with the "Other" category
ORIENT: Complete suppression of sexual orientation