Research Methodologies for Sports Scholarship

When investigating the diverse, complex and changing contemporary field of sport, we recognize there is no methodology that meets the needs of all sport. Sport researchers should take advantage of innovative approaches from other fields to explore emerging phenomena or innovatively advance scholarly sport research approaches. For example, technology, globalization and commercialization may be the principal trends, but they are not the only trends, Sport researchers have the opportunity to study other trends, including the modernization of sport organizations, changing governance practices, regulatory changes, innovation, merchandising, media and broadcasting technologies, socio demographic influences (i.e. aging populations, change in employment patterns, increasing diversity), sport for development, physical activity and sport participation changes. As such, this book introduces innovative research methods and approaches can be applied to the sport discipline. This book was originally published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

Introduction: New problems, new challenges: embracing innovative approaches to sport researchJames Skinner and Terry Engelberg 1. Using qualitative methodology to better understand why females experience barriers to regular participation in adventure sport in ScotlandSarah Morton 2. Stories and stakeholders: how to explore the paradox of commercialism in sportsHans Erik Næss 3.Opportunities to interpret: a methodological discussion of insider research, perceptions of the researcher, and knowledge productionMelissa C. Wiser 4. Finding the missing voices of Sport for Development and Peace (SDP): using a ‘Participatory Social Interaction Research’ methodology and anthropological perspectives within African developing countriesHolly Collison and David Marchesseault 5. Negotiating insider–outsider status in ethnographic sports researchDanielle Sarver Coombs and Anne C. Osborne 6. Social validation: a motivational theory of doping in an online bodybuilding communityBrendan Hutchinson, Stephen Moston and Terry Engelberg 7.Valuing the lived experience: a phenomenological study of skiingKerensa Clark, Lesley Ferkins, Liz Smythe and Uma Jogulu 8. Doing descriptive phenomenological data collection in sport psychology researchLisa O’Halloran, Martin Littlewood, David Richardson, David Tod and Mark Nesti 9.Understanding implementation and change in complex interventions. From single- to multi-methodological research on the promotion of youths’ participation in physical educationSine Agergaard, Silke Dankers, Mette Munk and Anne-Marie Elbe 10. Using transdisciplinary research to examine talent identification and development in sportKristine Toohey, Clare MacMahon, Juanita Weissensteiner, Alana Thomson, Chris Auld, Anthony Beaton, Matthew Burke and Geoff Woolcock 11. A mixed methods approach to compare elite sport policies of nations. A critical reflection on the use of composite indicators in the SPLISS studyVeerle De Bosscher 12. Event history analysis of longitudinal data: a methodological application to sport sponsorshipJonathan A. Jensen and Brian A. Turner 13. A case study of Twitter as a research toolBen Corbett and Allan Edwards

James Skinner is a Professor of Sport Business, Director of the Institute for Sport Business at Loughborough University, London, UK. His research interests are in leadership, culture, change and innovation in sport, doping in sport, sport and social capital and research design and methods for sport business. Terry Engelberg is an Associate Professor: Department of Psychology/Sport and Exercise Science, James Cook University, Cairns, Australia. Terry has previously conducted seven major studies on anti-doping in Australia and a project on detecting doping, funded by the inaugural International Olympic Committee.