Michael Murphy Source 1

Documentation:

How does a university's athletic success influence the public's perception of its academic quality?

Goidel, Robert Kirby, and John Maxwell Hamilton.  “Strengthening Higher Education Through Gridiron Success?  Public Perceptions Of The Impact Of National Football Championships On Academic Quality.”  Social Science Quarterly (Wiley-Blackwell) 87.4 (2006):  851-862. Academic Search Elite.  Web.  29 Feb. 2016.

Exploration:

The intent of this article was to explore how the public connects athletic success with the academic quality of a particular university.  This study was conducted through two statewide surveys consisting of randomly selected Louisiana residents.  One was conducted in February 2004 and the other was conducted in January 2005.  LSU won the BCS Championship in January 2004.  Through previous knowledge, the researchers were able to come up with four hypotheses.  Additionally, to measure the results and accuracy of the study, the researchers arranged data into a bunch of different categories depending on the respondent's income, education, age, attentiveness to public affairs, gender, and race.  Respondents were also asked to rate colleges and universities relative to other states in the south and how they would change spending in specific government services like education, roads, environment, etc.  These questions were to consider the public's view of universities.  After explaining the background to the experiment, the results were announced.  The majority of the public connects athletic success to academic quality.  Although this is true, there was no support that the success of one season impacts the magnitude that the public connects academics and sports because both surveys provided similar results (LSU was not as good at football in the 2005 season).  Also, it was found that a less educated person is more likely to believe in the connection between athletic and academic success through the results.  The surveys for the differing years offered slightly different results, because people who were less attentive to public affairs were more likely to connect the two in 2005 but not 2004.  In the next part, it was found that generally, people who saw a link between academics and athletics rated Louisiana schools more favorably.  Also it seems that people who were older, more educated, and received a higher income evaluated Louisiana schools more negatively, but this was not very consistent.  A final finding in 2005 was that respondents who strongly disagree that athletics affects academics are less likely to support increased spending on higher education, however this is not the case for 2004.  Overall results seemed very inconsistent.  However, it seems universities get public relations benefits from athletics because they gain support through members who would generally not care about higher education.  Also the research was conducted in an area where the football team had two successful years, which could have influenced the results.

This article did not prove to me that the public actually sees a connection between athletic success and academic quality.  Basically every single result from the study had an asterisk by it figuratively because the results were not consistent.  The 2004 survey and the 2005 survey were getting opposing results very frequently.  I originally thought that the athletic success would influence the public's perception.  When I was younger, I would see a team playing a sport and if I became a fan of them, I would be interested in attending their school.  This could be because I am a sports fan so I value athletics but also because I was young and did not know anything.  Once I became at least a middle schooler, I realized that a school's athletic success did not translate to academics.  Because everyone who was in the study was at least voting age, most of them also probably had this realization when they were still very young.  This source does not completely alter my thinking.  I think the conclusion of this article was interesting because it mentioned how the school's athletics tailors to the public that would not be interested in higher education originally.  This is a way to try to spread a positive reputation through an observational and less educated path.  I agree with the source that there is not complete correlation between athletics and academic success.  This source definitely helps me answer my original research question because it provided a credible study that did not have consistent results to prove a correlation.  But because this study was very regional, I do still question this answer.  Although it does not seem likely, on a more national scale, a school's sports team's coverage could prove influential in at least attracting potential students to the school.  Although athletics success does not correlate to academics, I think it is very possible that the schools still profit indirectly through sports.  Schools probably get students whose first exposure was an athletic event, which provides many small benefits.  Although about half of the people surveyed stated that they agree that college athletics make for a better academic university, these people were generally less educated so they will support the university no matter what.  This shows that although people see a correlation, that does not mean that a school is academically worse if it is bad at sports, because of the lack of evidence from this study.  Overall, this source has helped me affirm the belief that although certain people may see a school as academically better because of athletic results, this does not cause influential negative effects on the school.

I now must further research if the athletic public perception influences a school's academic function.  If a school is looked at negatively because of sports, they might attract less students or faculty and will perform worse academically.  My overall topic is about sports' influence on schools so I must keep exploring on a school's reputation through sports.  Aside from this, I still need to research the social influences of sports and certain fiscal situations at schools because of sports.  I now know that athletics mainly influence public relations, not actual academics of schools.  The actual academic influences from the source were very limited.