Non Athletes Are Involved In Sports

My hypothesis was different than what I expected it to be. Before starting my research I had hypothesized that athletes were going to be more prone to stress than non athletes since both of the groups are involved in one or more advanced placement classes but on top of that athletes are involved in sports. Based on the data I got back from all of the students in two of the AP Literature and Composition classes, it was the opposite. A majority of non athletes students were continuously stressed compared to a majority of athletes who said they were stressed on a weekly basis. Forty-one point four percent of the non athletes were continuously stressed compared to eleven point five percent of the athletes who were stressed continuously. More than
fifty percent of the students from both of the groups claimed that their main stressor was course load. I expected for athletes to have their sport as one of the main answers contributing to their stress but it was actually course load followed by expectations from family and other. Extracurricular activities was the fourth choice out of the seven choices that were given as options on the survey. Regardless of the students having different extracurricular activities, sixty percent of the students, from both of the groups surveyed, had around the same answers dealing with the student’s own choice of their main stressor, how many hours of sleep they get to why they are getting less sleep than the average teenager is supposed to get.
Limitations
Given the fact that the athletes that were surveyed played different sports throughout the year for example, soccer, football, basketball, baseball or cross country; the survey was handed out to the students when fall sports had ended and spring sports were just beginning. The time the survey was passed out regarding the athlete’s sport session whether the season had finished, the athletes were in the middle of the season or just beginning played a factor in the athletes choosing a different responses regarding their stress.
The school where the surveys were passed out only offered three AP LIterature and Composition classes to seniors so I randomly selected two of the three classes which made the distribution between the two groups was not completely half and half, there were were more non athletes than athletes in both classes that were used to pass my survey out. Doing three classes instead of two classes would have been maybe another thirty surveys to analyze but I would have gotten a wider range of athletes and nonathletes.
In the survey I included an extra section where athletes answered questions regarding their season and other questions about their sport but I only questioned the athletes if they played a sport at the high school level. Instead of narrowing down the option for the students to play a sport at their high school I should have also stated it was okay if the students played a sport outside of school for example, for the city’s team.