The Collegiate Male Athlete Perspective of Female Athletic Trainers

Abstract

Gender issues in the workplace are continually being discussed, but have yet to be discussed through the lens of Midwestern collegiate athletics. Despite the fact that females make up more than half of all athletic trainers, a gender bias may still exist. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a gender bias exists in the field of athletic training and the characteristics of those who have gender bias. The researcher designed a quantitative research study to investigate the collegiate male athlete perspective of female athletic trainers. The instrument used in this study was a Google forms survey composed of demographic questions, questions regarding athletic training services the athlete has experienced in the past, and Likert score questions investigating whether they have no preference or prefer a male athletic trainer to treat various injuries and conditions by responding on a Likert scale. A Chi-Square test contingency table analysis was used to analyze the collegiate male athlete perspective of female athletic trainers. The study found that there was correlation between male athletes who had gender-specific injuries and their perspective of being treated by female athletic trainers for those injuries. There was no correlation between year in college of male athletes, political affiliation of male athletes, the gender from which the male athlete has received more athletic training services from in college, and the sport(s) in which the male athlete participated and their perspective of female athletic trainers.