Marcus A.

Lloyd

PPE3003

September 9, 2007

Activity Assignment 2: Research Methods

Question: Is there an association between neuroticism and

success in sports performance?

Case Study: By means of an employing a case study

psychologists can gain an in depth view of a person in order to
answer a significant problem. In this case one needs to determine
whether to pursue a case study or clinical study.

The question “Is there an association between neuroticism

and success in sports?” can be successfully studied through the
use of the clinical approach in which the question has become a
problem. A psychologist would begin the case study by identifying
an athlete who has varying levels of success in sports. In this
example a college-level swimmer is the focus of the study. The
swimmer, Ben, has shown moments of great success in swim
meets often winning them. Yet, he has also shown moments of
mediocre performance throughout the season. Ben is known
amongst friends to be very emotional and moody. Does Ben’s
level of neuroticism have an underlying association with his
athletic performance? A pertinent approach would be to conduct
an in depth study of Ben during a particular sporting season. The
psychologist would begin by assessing Ben’s general level of
neuroticism using a questionnaire. Ben would subsequently be
interviewed before each swim meet to assess his emotional state
and his performance in the meet would be noted. After the swim
season had ended the psychologist would study his/her notes in
order to find out if indeed there was an association between Ben’s
level of neuroticism and his athletic performance.
Correlational Design: Conduct a survey of athletes. This
study should be limited to a particular field such as swimming.
Use the questionnaire tool to determine levels of neuroticism with
each athlete. Observe or note how successful an athlete is by
noting the frequency of their optimal performance. This can be
achieved by benchmarking. Afterwards, a correlation would be
computed between the two variables (level of neuroticism and
level of success) to see if there is a possible correlation, negative
or positive and the strength of such correlation.

Experimental Design: The experimental design may prove

difficult to use because neuroticism is related to the emotional
state. A possible way of using this design would be to use a tool
such as movies to induce an emotional state. Swimmers could be
individually shown randomly a humorous film, tragic drama,
happy film or emotionally sad movie. After viewing the movie they
would answer a simple questionnaire noting their emotional state
before a swim meet. Their results in the meet as benchmarked
against their optimal performance would be noted. This
experiment may involve several testings at different meets in
order to be successful.