Flinders Uni: Physical Activity and Academic Performance Study

This report presents a research plan designed to investigate the relationship between physical activity and academic performance among university students, specifically focusing on students at Flinders University. The study employs a cross-sectional design to assess the correlation between the time spent on physical activities and academic outcomes. The research includes formulating hypotheses, selecting a random sample of 50 students, and utilizing self-report surveys for data collection. The ethical considerations, including research merit and integrity, justice, beneficence, and respect for participants, are thoroughly addressed. The report also includes an email script, a letter of introduction, a participant information sheet, and the survey questions as appendices. The findings aim to provide insights into the optimal balance between physical activity and academic pursuits for improved student well-being and performance. The study acknowledges the importance of ethical practices throughout the research process, ensuring the privacy and informed consent of participants.

Assignment 2: Research Plan and Ethical Implications
Study Title
Research question
Research hypotheses
Is there any relation between time spent on performing physical activity and obtaining
academic results of University Students?
Hypothesis 1:
Increased physical activities tend to increase overall academic performance
Evaluating the coordination between physical activities and academic performance of
the student
Hypothesis 2:
The time spend on physical activities affects the academic performance of the students
Hypothesis 3:
Time spend on sports and completing home work are directly proportional to the good
academic performance

Proposed Methods
Study Design
The research will adopt the cross-sectional study design to evaluate the relationship between
physical activities conducted at college and its impact on academic performance (Setia, 2016).
The cross-sectional study will enable us to study the group of students at one point of time. This is
one type of qualitative method in which researcher observes the group of people and evaluate their
actions to get the results. This method is cost effective and can be used in different types of
research.
Participants and sampling
There are several kinds of probability and non-probability sampling methods available in the theory
which can be used to select the sample participants from the population. As a part of this research,
the researcher will use random sampling method which gives equal chance to all participants to take
part in survey (N.A, 2015).
50 university students will be selected based on random sampling to evaluate the relation between
time spent on physical activities and academic performance of the students. However, random
sampling may not provide you effective and quality samples all the time. It may cause an error in
the survey (Sincero, 2012).
Measures
The self-report survey is being used to collect the data. The questionnaire has been prepared
covering all the variables and elements of the subject after conducted in-depth literature review,
hence it can be said that validity and reliability of the data collection is appropriate. Furthermore,
the survey will be conducted online, where the participants will respond the survey online by
visiting the particular link (N.A, 2015).
The questionnaire has list of open ended and close ended questions which enables researcher to get
all the possible data to evaluate the subject. The adopted method is cost effective and reliable.
However, survey might be rate high or low by few of the participants but such uncertainties can be
avoided in the final analysis.

Ethical Implications
Research Merit and Integrity
It is important to note that the current study will add value to the current researches and would be
better reference for future researches. The integrity of the research demonstrates that research
should states new set of findings and recommendation which would guide the participants for their
further decision related to the subject. The research will take reviews from students about their
involvement in physical activities and its impact on academic performance. All the information will
be kept private and confidential and this will be used for this particular survey only. The research
merit and integrity will be taken care of in the research (Barrow & Khandhar., 2019).
Justice
Justice in the research is all about giving fair opportunity to all participants while conducting
survey. As the researcher has selected random sampling method, all the respondents are given equal
opportunities for filing out the survey. The privacy and confidentiality of the personal information
will be taken care by the surveyor. The respondents’ choices and opinions will be respected and
considered as the most important (australianclinicaltrials.gov.au, 2018).
Beneficence
As a part of ethical consideration in the research, Beneficence is one of the most essential part of
the survey. It is imperative to know about the welfare of the research. One should ensure that
collected data will be used strictly for evaluating the results of this particular research and not to be
used in another subject. The results should be beneficial for the participants, it is important to take
care that the results or research should not affect the morals stands of the respondents. The collected
data will give insights to the university students and professor to decide on the proportion of
physical activities can be conducted so that it would not affect the academic performance negatively
(ori.hhs.gov, 2018).
Respect
The researcher will ensure that all the participants would be comfortable to fill the survey. If they
do not want to share their private or related information, the perspective will be respected. They
would not be forced to fill the information. Respondents are free to choose whether to fill the survey
on a particular point of time (australianclinicaltrials.gov.au, 2018).

References
australianclinicaltrials.gov.au. (2018, September). The Importance of Ethics Review. Retrieved from
https://www.australianclinicaltrials.gov.au:
https://www.australianclinicaltrials.gov.au/_files/elearn/module-2/02-the-importance-of-
ethics-review.html
Barrow, J. M., & Khandhar., P. B. (2019, June 22). Research Ethics. Retrieved from
/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK459281/
N.A. (2015). Module 4: Study Design Measures. Retrieved from http://www.uniteforsight.org:
http://www.uniteforsight.org/research-methodology/module4
ori.hhs.gov. (2018). Beneficence. Retrieved from https://ori.hhs.gov:
https://ori.hhs.gov/education/products/ucla/chapter2/page03.htm
Setia, M. S. (2016). Methodology Series Module 3: Cross-sectional Studies. Indian Journal
Dermatology, 61(3), 261–264.
Sincero, S. M. (2012, May 10). Methods of Survey Sampling. Retrieved from
https://explorable.com: https://explorable.com/methods-of-survey-sampling