Ouch!: Female Student-Athletes and the Influence of Collegiate Athletics on Injury

Hunter Niebrugge

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/107008 Copy

Description

Title

Ouch!: Female Student-Athletes and the Influence of Collegiate Athletics on Injury

Author(s)

Hunter Niebrugge

Issue Date

2020

Keyword(s)

Exercise Science

Abstract

Sports injuries are highly common in collegiate athletics, and can often impact an athlete much more than just physically. Many athletes are susceptible to emotional and mental pain in addition to their physical detriments. The athlete injury experience is often stratified by several external and internal circumstances, and gender is an indicator of narratives that define the student-athlete’s injury. Such narratives influence a student-athlete to either seek help or play through or conceal an injury. An interesting and underrepresented realm of research is the female athlete response to injury. Research and common perceptions of female athletes and injury have resulted in a perceived ideal that female athletes are likely to consider future consequences of injury more so than their male counterparts. Motivations behind a female student-athletes’ continuation of play with injury were observed for this study. Researchers denote three possible explanations for injury concealment: pressure from authority figures (coaches, trainers, other teammates, etc.), fear of failure, and/or the need to uphold a specific personal narrative. To observe this phenomenon, the researcher surveyed a small cohort of Division II NCAA female student-athletes about injury history and experience. It was hypothesized that the fear of failure would be the most commonly designated answer for reasons of concealment. A total of 35 responses were tabulated. Fear of failure and self-identity as a healthy athlete were denoted as the primary two responses, with the designation of self-identity being the forerunner. These results allow researchers to understand the primary motivations for the concealment of athletic injuries by this specific cohort of NCAA Division II female student-athletes.

Type of Resource

• text
• other

Language

en

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/107008

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