LE3 .A278 2015

2015

Thomson, Tony

Acadia University

Bachelor of Arts

Honours

Sociology

Sociology

Numerous factors can affect the attitudes that athletes have about performance enhancing drugs, which are substances, or methods that are commonly used by athletes to increase their performance. This thesis assesses and describes the attitudes that student athletes have towards prohibited performance enhancing drugs. I conducted semi-structured interviews with four male collegiate athletes, representing three different sports, from two Canadian universities. The qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed the complexity of opinions student athletes have towards performance enhancing drugs. The results of my research can potentially be used to understand factors that can influence or deter the use of performance enhancing drugs. While the student athletes believed the positive outcomes of using performance-enhancing drugs can outweigh the negative outcomes, they indicated that higher moral and ethical standards deter them from its use. They also sympathized with the use of performance enhancing drugs under certain circumstances. Finally, the student athletes generally felt that reporting the use of performance enhancing drugs by another athlete to an anti-doping agency was a violation of athletic responsibilities. In order to effectively reduce the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports, anti-doping agencies must do more to understand the complex attitudes of the athletes they govern, as well as encourage and implement more interactive educational methods and conversations concerning the topic of performance enhancing drugs.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:1219