Running head: FINAL PLACEMENT REPORT – ARC INTRAMURALS

Final Placement Report – ARC Intramurals

Original Partner: Karley Salsbury

Current Partner: Matthew Fouzie

Sadie Stephenson, 10183411

Sarah Kelly, 10187241

Clara Gatien, 10170399

Stephanie Hancock, 10180924

HLTH 415

Dr. Levesque

April 5, 2018
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Introduction

Female1 opportunity and representation in sport has historically been considerably lower

than what is given to males. The result is fewer female athletes and lower female participation in

competitive, professional, and recreational sport. Queen’s University Intramural programs,

although perceived to be inclusive to women, are no exception to this reality. The goal of this

project was to identify the barriers to female participation in intramurals at Queen’s. Our original

partner, Karley Salesbury, gave us insight into the low numbers of female participation in

intramurals compared to the high levels of male participation. The information she provided us

with was troubling enough to warrant further investigation, in alignment with our goal of

identifying the barriers to female participation.

Our overarching goal was to use our research to create an inclusive space for women to

play recreational sports, test this space out by running female-only events, and eventually

increase overall female participation in intramural programming. Lower participation in

recreational sport means that women are losing out on a variety of social, psychological, and

physical benefits that this type of physical activity brings to the table. Improvements in overall

health, decreased stress levels, fitness, and increased levels of happiness are some of the many

benefits that female Queen’s students are missing out on (Forrester, 2014). Because female

Queen’s students are deserving of these benefits, as much as males are, our goal was to increase

female participation in ARC intramurals.

Our intended population was all female-identifying undergraduate students at Queen’s.

The setting of the program was the Athletics and Recreation Centre (ARC), and more

specifically the intramural programs within the ARC. Local data demonstrated that female

1 The terms female and women do not intend to exclude identifying gender neutral, non-binary, two spirited or
transgender individuals.
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undergraduate students make up about 40% of intramural participants, while male undergraduate

students make up the remaining 60% (“IMLeagues,” 2018). While already troubling, on top of

this, female students represent 60% of the undergraduate population at Queen’s (Queen's

University Senate, 2017). The statistics on female representation in the undergraduate population

versus female representation in the intended setting demonstrates a significant gap in female

participation. Females are not being properly represented within the setting of ARC Intramurals

at Queen’s.

Placement Activities

Identifying the barriers to female participation in recreational sport at Queen’s was the

first step necessary in formulating our program plan and successfully implementing our

intervention. We began with a needs assessment to evaluate existing gaps in female inclusivity.

The needs assessment was conducted by collecting relevant data using the online intramural

database IMLeagues, followed by sending a survey to female-identifying intramural participants

and non-participants from the 2018-19 intramural season. During the data collection stage, we

reviewed sport and league statistics to determine where the lack of female participation was the

most prevalent. Once we had baseline statistics on female participation from the past intramural

season, we then identified the need to determine which physical, psychological, time-based,

interpersonal, access/opportunity, or programming barriers were negatively impacting female

participation. We determined that creating and disseminating an online survey would be the ideal

method to retrieve information on participation barriers from female students.

The goal of the survey was to identify the strengths and weaknesses of current intramural

programming, and to determine which barriers were impeding female participation. We used

several frameworks to guide our survey. Firstly, we used social-ecological theory to guide our
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questions, taking into account the intrapersonal, interpersonal, institutional, and community

factors that could influence an individual’s participation in intramurals (Johnstone & Millar,

2012). By using the social-ecological model to frame our survey, we obtained a greater

understanding of the multiple different levels (i.e. interpersonal) in which barriers can impact

female participation (Johnstone & Millar, 2012). The survey was also guided by social marketing

theory. We designed survey questions using the marketing mix: product, price, place, promotion.

By determining the core products, what students viewed as being the benefits of recreational

sport, we were able to later design the messaging in our social marketing campaign with the

perceived benefits of the target audience in mind (Grier & Bryant, 2005). Core products

identified through the survey included socializing, meeting new people, engaging in physical

activity, de-stressing, and having fun. In order to determine barriers to participating in

intramurals, we designed a question targeting the element of price. Determining the perceived

price of engaging in the behaviour helped us identify the barriers of time, social anxiety, and

perceived lack of skill. Little emphasis was put on place as most students have equal access to

the Queen’s Athletic and Recreation Centre on campus. In addition, several survey questions

addressed promotion, focusing on activities that would increase female participation (Grier &

Bryant, 2005). Based on the responses, we created a campaign that centered around the core

products that the target audience associated with participating in recreational sport, and more

generally physical activity. By doing so, we provided the audience with solutions to their

perceived barriers by exposing them to the positive aspects to participation (Grier & Bryant,

2005).

Once the survey period closed, we compiled the data and used these results to create a

targeted social marketing campaign. Audience segmentation and a targeted communication

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approach were used in the design of the campaign. Targeted communication was used over

tailored communication, because we wanted to target the subpopulation of female-identified

undergraduate students (Noar, Benac & Harris, 2007). Issue shaping was also at the forefront of

the campaign to ensure messaging was created in the best interest of the target audience, rather

than for our personal success (Bakan, 2016). Information gathered from our formative evaluation

allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of the target audience’s priorities, which we then used

to motivate an increase in participation (Grier & Bryant, 2005). By designing the campaign with

an audience segmented, targeted, and issue shaping approach, we were able to successfully reach

our target audience.

The social marketing campaign that we created included a series of print and digital

promotional material. We designed social media posts using exchange theory, the notion that the

benefits must outweigh the costs of participating, in order to gain the attention of our target

audience (Grier & Bryant, 2005). Our promotional material demonstrated the benefits of

participating in recreation sport, with the goal of enticing female students to attend our drop-in

activities. For example, one of our social media posts stated: “Did you know? Playing intramural

sports increases your sense of belonging and community” (Appendix A). This message removes

the perceived price of social anxiety, instead replacing it with the core product of the sense of

community that participation in intramurals creates. The promotional material avoided victim

blaming by emphasizing the benefits of participation, and addressing social and environmental

barriers, rather than targeting the individual’s current behaviour (Grier & Bryant, 2005). By

integrating these strategies into our promotional material, we were able to create a successful

social marketing campaign rooted in evidence based theory.

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The implementation phase of our project took place with a series of female only drop-in

events, which we advertised as “Women’s Week.” Women’s Week ran from March fourth to

eighth, and involved four different drop-in style recreational sport activities. The goal of these

events was to expose a greater number of female students to the benefits of recreational sport,

while giving them a safe space to learn new skills and improve on existing ones. We first held an

informational booth on the Monday, which ran in the ARC lobby all day. The goal was to

promote the drop-in events to female students, and give the greater Queen’s community a chance

to learn more about the importance of including females in recreational sport, the outcomes of

the survey, as well as our overall project. We handed out print versions of the posts from our

social marketing campaign, as well as mini calendars of the Women’s Week events to

individuals passing by. The information on the flyers shared the core products of engaging in

recreational physical activity, as well as specific statistics about Queen’s students drawn from the

survey results. Studies show that university students’ behaviour is influenced by modelling and

social support (Deliens et al, 2015). We chose to expose students to data relevant to their

demographic in the hopes of catalyzing behaviour change.

The next activity of the week was a rugby clinic. We chose to incorporate rugby in the

events because our partner informed us that it was a highly requested addition to intramurals.

The clinic was lead by the women’s varsity rugby team. By having female varsity athletes lead

the session, participants were able to see and interact with athletic women, working to decrease

the stereotype that women who play sports lack femininity (Johnstone & Millar 2012). The lack

of female representation in sport in the mainstream media only perpetuates this notion that

athletic women are masculine and undesirable (Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation, 2008).

Involving strong role models helped to encourage novice players to learn about the sport.
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The third activity of the week was a recess league, where students could drop-in and play

volleyball, soccer, basketball or dodgeball. We chose this activity as a way of encouraging

students to rediscover the joy of playing sports with friends, an activity that most people tend to

stop doing after adolescence. The casual drop in setting gave students a chance to play alongside

new people and work towards creating a stronger community among female students. We also

wanted students to have the opportunity to meet peers, hopefully encouraging registration for the

upcoming intramural season together. One of the common barriers to female participation was

that women did not have friends who were willing to join a team with them (Appendix B, Figure

B1). Recess style leagues are successful at many Canadian universities, notably the University of

Guelph, indicating that a similar program has a high potential for success at Queen’s (Gryphons

Fitness and Recreation, 2019). This activity acted as a test run for a female only recess league at

Queen’s, and generated positive feedback.

Following the recess league, we ran a basketball drop-in session. Basketball is one of the

sports with the biggest gap between male and female participation, with only 22% of all

registrants being female in the 2018-19 season (IMLeagues, 2019). Basketball is a male

dominated sport making the co-ed leagues as well as the lunch time drop-in sessions an

intimidating environment for female students to enter. An uninviting recreational space is only

made worse when a person has low confidence in their athletic abilities, as is the case with many

female students at Queen’s (Johnstone & Millar, 2012) (Appendix B, Figure B1). The female

only drop-in basketball sessions acted as a safe space where females could play together or

practice skills individually.

The final activity of the week was the women’s only swim, which also runs weekly

during the year. The swim took place on International Women’s Day. To run this event we
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partnered with the ARC Aquatics, as a means of increasing participation in the pre-existing

event. The rationale behind offering a women’s only swim is to have a safe space where women

can be in the pool without feeling sexualized or observed by men (Women’s Sports and Fitness

Foundation, 2008). The very real consequence of an unwanted male gaze during physical activity

is that women cease to participate out of discomfort, in turn failing to benefit from the activity.

Following Women’s Week, we sent out a follow-up survey to the participants of all

events. The survey was composed of multiple-choice questions, short answer questions and

Likert scale responses, allowing us to gain insight on how to better the event in upcoming years.

We ensured that the format was short and to the point to avoid response fatigue (Lavrakas,

2008). It also proved to be an essential platform for receiving feedback on general changes to be

made to intramural programming, which are outlined in the discussion section.

Discussion

Overall, we believe that our placement with the ARC Intramurals was a success. The data

and feedback we collected throughout the placement has provided our partner, Matthew Fouzie,

and his team with relevant information that can be used to increase female participation in

recreational sport at Queen’s. Our experiences revealed the obvious areas of needed

improvement, the most prominent being the creation and fostering of equal opportunities for all

genders. Because we were able to discover and shed light on many areas of concern in ARC

Intramurals during our placement, we believe that we have completed a successful data

collection. We were fortunate to have identified problem areas early on in our placement, thus

allowing us to implement Women’s Week. The week acted as a trial run to evaluate potential

solutions in an attempt to increase female participation levels. We have conducted a successful

data collection and analysis, hosted a successful week of drop-in events, conducted process
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evaluations throughout the intervention, and therefore have gained a strong understanding of

improvements needed in order for the ARC to reach its goal of increased female participation.

We have had multiple successes within our placement. Our first success was within the

formative evaluation step. Early on in our placement we engaged in a literature review, looking

at intramural registration and sports specific statistics. We were given administrative access to

the IMLeagues intramural database, allowing us to analyze trends and collect quantitative data

on the amount of females registered in every league and sport. All data collected can be seen in

the Appendix C. The most startling statistic we found, was that in the past three years, only

around 47% of undergraduate females participated in intramurals as opposed to 96% of

undergraduate males (Appendix D). In addition to IMLeagues allowing us access this raw data, it

also gave us a platform to communicate with the participants, which was instrumental in

disseminating our survey.

The survey was distributed to undergraduate students using IMLeagues, as well as

through various social media platforms. The survey was a major success, with about 600

responses. Of the responses, 126 were from non-participants, and 473 were from individuals who

participated in intramural programming during the 2018-19 season. An area where we could

have improved upon would be the engagement of non-participants in the survey, seeing as they

were the group whose behaviour we were trying to change. Many of the current participant’s

responses were incredibly helpful in addressing issues related to equality, and helped us narrow

down specific characteristics of existing programming that need to be addressed by the ARC.

Throughout the events during Women’s Week, we were able to gather information on

female participation and intramural programs by observing and connecting with participants.

Women’s Week was integral to the process evaluation component of our intervention, as we
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were able to take the information gained from the survey and apply it to solutions such as the

implementation of women’s only drop-in activities. Our direct involvement with Women’s Week

allowed us to uncover the most pressing areas in need of gender equality reform, at both the

intramural level and within the University as a whole.

We consider our survey results alongside the Women’s Week events as our greatest

successes within our placement, as we gained an incredible amount of insight into what

undergraduate females want to see within intramural programming in the future. Overall, it is

evident that the ARC Intramurals need to focus on fostering a more inclusive environment. This

can be achieved by creating new opportunities for women’s only programming, as well as

improving on existing offerings. Implementation of the following recommendations is highly

encouraged:

1. Create women’s only drop in times for specific sports throughout the week, similar to

the already present casual recreation times available at the ARC. These are open to all

genders, but are predominantly attended by men. A student that attended Women’s

week told us she frequently attends this basketball drop-in time. This student has seen

women come in wanting to play, but getting discouraged because of how few other

women participate. This indicates that the casual co-ed drop-in times currently

offered are not welcoming to females. Furthermore, 35% of survey respondents

confirmed this when they reported that they felt judged by males when playing sports

(Appendix B, Figure B2). Additionally, 67% of the follow-up survey participants said

they would be interested in the addition of women’s only drop-in leagues (Appendix

B, Figure B3).
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a. Basketball was a very popular drop-in activity during women’s week, making

it a good candidate for casual drop-in times.

b. Recess league was also a success. If implemented, it would allow individuals

to participate in a multitude of sports, ultimately increasing confidence in

skills while having fun.

2. Create competition tiers within women’s only leagues, as are already present in co-ed

and open leagues. This would allow people with similar levels of skill and desire for

competition to play together. Many female participants feel that the level of

competition is not high enough within the women’s only leagues, causing them to

enroll in co-ed. Although this allows them to play in a more competitive nature, sexist

behaviour still prevails, discouraging participation all together. These behaviours

include: limited playing time, less inclusion in play (not passing to women, etc.),

feelings of discomfort, as well as safety concerns regarding differences in size. There

needs to be a focus on fostering a positive competitive environment within the

women’s only leagues.

a. There were significant equipment issues. Women have to play with male

equipment standards in co-ed competitive leagues. The first survey revealed

that women have to play with a volleyball net that satisfies the height

standards required for men’s volleyball, rather than women’s (Appendix B,

Figure B4). Additionally, a participant during women’s week expressed the

frustrations her and her female teammates had regarding having to use a

men’s basketball in the co-ed leagues. It is clear that these co-ed leagues

prioritize male athletes over female athletes. Creating more competitive

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leagues for women would allow them to perform at their highest level of play

without being put at a disadvantage.

3. Intramurals, alongside Athletics and Recreation, should consider the barriers to

participation faced by non-binary students. Although this does not pertain to our

placement instructions specifically, as our task was to analyze female participation, it

is an important factor to take into account. Non-binary issues within intramurals were

brought up by many survey respondents. If the ARC is serious about working towards

creating an inclusive environment, it should not exclude gender non-binary

individuals (Appendix B, Figure B5). The gender ratio needed in co-ed leagues,

creates an exclusive and uncomfortable environment for those individuals. We urge

Athletics and Recreation to consider the following questions:

a. How can we make students feel comfortable and accepted in all physical

activity spaces? How can we make intramurals truly inclusive to gender non-

conforming and non-binary students?

b. Is there are a way to decrease the emphasis on gender when then the current

programming is based on a binary view of gender?

We do not feel as though we have the necessary knowledge to be able to recommend

a solution to this problem, as it was not in the scope of our project. Therefore, we

have included questions the ARC can ask regarding fostering an inclusive

environment for all individuals, outlined above. We believe the ARC needs to begin

taking steps towards understanding that there are more programming issues regarding

gender, not just low female participation.

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By assessing the outcome of Women’s Week, we were able to identify problems that we

experienced as program facilitators, as well as problems perceived by our intended population.

Through our interactions and discussions with participants, as well as the feedback from the

follow-up survey, we have concluded that the largest area for improvement is within promotion.

There are two main factors that could have been improved upon in our social marketing

campaign; the start time of promotion as well as our promotional strategies.

We think that the promotional strategies used in our social marketing campaign could

have been improved upon. We had lower rates of participation than were expected, with an

approximate total of 30 women attending our drop-in events. The success of the social marketing

campaign was measured using the evaluation hierarchy for social media engagement (Neiger et

al, 2012). There was a medium level of engagement in the event on Facebook, with 10 shares

and 159 students clicking one of “going” or “interested.” The ARC Instagram posts had low

engagement, with a median amount of only 16 likes. Once we completed our follow up survey,

the majority of answers on how to improve Women’s Week stated that promotional strategies

were inadequate (Appendix E). There was a gap between the engagement on Facebook and the

engagement at events, and we gained almost no attention via Instagram. Looking at this

information, we concluded that our promotional campaign was not sufficient in gaining students

attention.

The time of promotion was the second major thing that needed improvement. The posts

that appeared on Instagram were not to put up at optimal times during the day, and therefore

received a low amount of views. To improve our marketing in the future, we would need to

communicate more with the ARC in regards to which visual messages we want posted, at what

times, and on what days. Additionally, we should have started marketing the event earlier than a
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week before the events. This would allow students to be aware in advance and plan accordingly.

With these improvements, we believe that events could gain more attention earlier on, increasing

the turnout at the drop-in sessions.

Conclusion

We highly encourage the ARC Intramural program to continue to run Women’s Week,

and consider the recommendations outlined in this paper in order to make it as successful as

possible. Women’s Week was intended to act as a trial for the implementation of more women’s

only drop-in style activities. We believe that the most beneficial change that could be

implemented would be women’s only drop-in activities for various sports throughout the week.

We have come to this conclusion based on the overall positive feedback we received regarding

the female only drop-in style recreational sport activities. Drop-in style activities promote a more

comfortable environment to engage in physical activity for women.  It is evident that many

females who already participate in intramurals enjoy the programs, have positive experiences,

and generally enjoy the competitive nature of co-ed leagues. Therefore, the ARC’s next steps

should be to focus on recruiting and marketing intramurals as a program that can be for everyone

of every skill level, competitive level, and time commitment. Creating drop-in leagues for

women only is just one step in the right direction to an inclusive intramural environment. The

ARC should begin to take a more serious approach towards gender inclusivity.
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References

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Deliens, T., Deforche, B., De Bourdeaudhuij, I., & Clarys, P. (2015). Determinants of physical

activity and sedentary behaviour in university students: a qualitative study using focus

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psychosocial factors. Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport
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Queen's University Senate. (2017). Enrolment Report, 1–14. Retrieved from

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Appendix A
Social Marketing Campaign Example

Appendix B
Results From Formative Evaluation Survey

Figure B1.
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Figure B2.

Figure B3.

Figure B4.
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Figure B5.

Appendix C
Female VS. Male Intramural Registration

Figure C1.
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Figure C2.

Appendix D
Total Undergrad Involvement in Intramurals Based on Gender (%)

Year Females Males Overall Difference

2017-18 44.6% 92.3% 47.7%

2016-17 48.4% 99.6% 51.2%

2015-16 49% 96.2% 47.2%

Appendix E
Follow Up Survey Results