I have largely changed my course over the last couple of weeks – I initially began asking questions regarding how athletes as a whole have been negatively effected by Title IX (related too much to my own bias). Upon doing some more in-depth research, I have discovered that it would be appropriate to ask some more specific questions and slightly modify the topic I will be looking in to.
More generally first…
- How have women in positions of leadership been affected by Title IX at the collegiate level?
- Why are the numbers what they are? What causes them to change as such?
More specifically now…
- How have women in positions of leadership (specifically Athletic Directors immediate subordinates) been affected in the Atlantic 10 (A10) athletic conference?
- Why have we seen a decrease in women in leadership roles at the collegiate and conference level? What is holding back qualified candidates from career longevity and advancement?
- How do the leadership numbers and participation numbers look from the conception of Title IX to now within the A10? What factors are contributing to the change in numbers?
So, as I have been doing more research and consistently asking new questions, it has made me aware that I will be using interpretive research as my methodology. This is a topic best served with an initial dive in to the research itself, leading to new questions to be asked. I believe this is the best way to go about tackling these topics because it will continue to broaden the branches of my research tree in the most efficient way. It seems that every time I look in to this topic more, there seems to be more and more connecting back to each other. This leaves me with the firm believe that interpretive research will be my best option. To speak more literally on my methodology, it is important that I be able to actually interpret the information I am reading and the data that I am finding. This will allow me to form my own original thoughts and opinions as well as formulate and conduct my research proposal the most effectively that I can. I will not be using any true standard of measurement here outside of the comparison of numbers from two different periods of time to better illustrate trends and issues (or not). Perhaps it is more intuitive and appropriate of me to be able to accurately depict trends and the reasons for such so that I may efficiently and actively portray the why.
I believe this approach will work well for you. The kind of research you’ll be doing sounds like it will be historical and sociological, meaning you’ll examine the history of Title IX and its impact on women’s sports, possibly in qualitative and quantitative ways, and you’ll conduct direct research with participants to see if their experiences corroborate your findings or point toward different impacts and different reasons for the impact. You may discover that you have to focus on one aspect of the project — either capturing participate data or researching historical data — for this project, with the expectation that you might move forward to develop other aspects of the study in the future.
Professor,
Thank you for your feedback on this. I agree – I think it will best serve me to narrow the topic here and focus on one aspect. I feel as though a more historical approach will serve me better in expectation of continuing the project later (then moving in to a more participate data mode). I think this helps me narrow down the focus and be able to work more directly on the final research proposal that we will be handing in. It definitely clears that up a little bit.
Thanks again for the feedback here and I look forward to seeing where else this project will be taking me.