Intersection of sports and academics

Intersection of sports and academics: College women’s perspectives of literacy

CRLA 2023 Baltimore, MD

Pamela H. Segal, Towson University Montana McCormick, Towson University

The Study and Theoretical Framework

Theoretical Framework

The Study

• Women college basketball players who finished their college basketball careers between 2019 and 2022, 93.9% graduated compared to the 87.2% men college players.
• Women’s sports teams have higher grade point averages than their men’s counterparts (NCAA.Org, 2022). Compared to other female college sports, women’s basketball players’ Graduation Success Rate (GSR) was at the bottom (NCAA.Org, 2022).
• Further, white female basketball players graduate at a higher rate than their African American teammates (Lapchick, 2022).

• Likelihood of a woman basketball player making it to the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) is 2.8%. Of that percentage, most come from a Division I high profile program (e.g., ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC) (NCAA.org, 2020).

The What: A research study that explored college women basketball players and their perspectives of literacy in the classroom and on the court. Participants: 3 freshman female basketball studnet-athletes, all on full/partial scholarship, 2 black, 1 white, 2 private school, 1 public school Settting: Midsize Mid-Atlantic University, Division I, Method: Summer literacy institute, focus group, questionanire, and individual interviews (mixed methods). 1st- data was organized into categories to see the themes that developed. Next, we confirmed our results by working with a third party, who also reviewed the data and the themes we had established.

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Results

• The females were rabid questioners and critical consumers of their own education.
• They voiced their perspectives on many topics, beginning with literacy and making their way to the need to take certain classes in college.
• Analytical thinking is a valued skill in and out of the classroom setting.

• The women basketball student athletes were able to analyze, summarize, support their claims, and express the issues that might arise all within the language of the sport.

• Basketball literacy skills can be transferrable to the academic literacy of the classroom. Yet, these female athletes struggles to make this connection.
• The women in this study showed that they knew and understood the literacies needed both on and off the court yet often struggled to connect them.

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How this informs the college classroom

It is imperative that both coaches and teachers connect these two worlds in which these individuals use their literacy skills.

The results of this study suggest that as educators and coaches, weneed to support our students in making the connections between sports and academics.

By making these basic connections explicit between the classroom and the court, the players can better transfer their expertise in the sport to the academic space.

Coaches and teachers need to do more than just encourage student athletes to succeed, they need to make these connections explicit. Without that connection many students are often left thinking that one space is more important than another.

Questions?

Thank you! Pamela Segal psegal@towson.edu

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