Michael Atkinson - Key Concepts in Sport and Exercise Research Methods

Key Concepts in
Sport and Exercise
Research Methods

Key Concepts in Sport Psychology
John M D Kremer, Aidan Moran,
Cathy Craig and Graham Walker

Key Concepts in Sports Studies
Stephen Wagg, Belinda Wheaton,
Carlton Brick and Jayne Caudwell

Key Concepts in Sport and Exercise Sciences
David Kirk, Carlton Cooke, Anne
Flintoff and Jim McKenna

Key Concepts in Tourist Studies
Melanie Smith, Nicola MacLeod and
Margaret Hart Robertson

Key Concepts in Leisure Studies
David Harris

Key Concepts in Public Health
Frances Wilson and Andi Mabhala

Key Concepts in Health Psychology
Ian Albery and Marcus Munafo

Key Concepts in Health Studies
Chris Yuill, Iain Crinson and Eilidh
Duncan

The SAGE Key Concepts series provides students with accessible and authoritative knowledge of the essential topics in a variety of disciplines. Cross-referenced throughout, the format encourages critical evaluation through understanding. Written by experienced and respected academics, the books are indispensable study aids and guides to comprehension.

MICHAEL ATKINSON

Key Concepts in
Sport and Exercise
Research Methods

Michael Atkinson 2012

First published 2012

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

SAGE Publications Ltd
1 Olivers Yard
55 City Road
London EC1Y 1SP

SAGE Publications Inc.
2455 Teller Road
Thousand Oaks, California 91320

SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd
B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area
Mathura Road
New Delhi 110 044

SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd
33 Pekin Street #02-01
Far East Square
Singapore 048763

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011922511

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-84860-728-6
ISBN 978-1-84860-729-3 (pbk)

Typeset by C&M Digitals (P) Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire
Printed on paper from sustainable resources

FIGURES

TABLES

Michael Atkinson is Associate Professor, Faculty of Physical Education and Health, University of Toronto. He was previously Senior Lecturer in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Loughborough University, leading the instruction of research methods and skills at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels therein. Michael received a PhD in Sociology from the University of Calgary in 2001 (BA, University of Waterloo, 1995; MA, McMaster University, 1997). Since then, he has researched and taught courses on the sociology of sport, bodies, deviance and research methods (qualitative, quantitative and historical) at Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada), McMaster University (Canada), and University of Western Ontario (Canada). For his contributions to the Canadian social sciences, Michael was the recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canadas prestigious Aurora Award in 2004.

With the mushrooming of undergraduate programmes in sport and exercise science, kinesiology, and physical activity and health, on both sides of the Atlantic, modules in research skills and methods have expanded and diversified considerably. In many universities, methodology courses at the undergraduate level cater to students with wide ranging sub-disciplinary interests such as psychology, physiology, sociology, biomechanics, pedagogy, health, economics, management and others. Within this context of diversity, one of the primary pedagogical hurdles to negotiate in an undergraduate methods module is finding a comprehensive and panoramic introductory reader within a literature that contains a relative dearth of accessible and down-to-earth options. What students and instructors are forced to do is read from several commonly used sport and exercise sciences methods textbooks (written from either a predominantly quantitative or qualitative slant), or employ methods books from other disciplines (biology or sociology, for example) that are simply not written for sport, exercise and health students. These books do not often articulate the significance and practice of core methodological concepts in straightforward and plain language.

I feel that to engage students more directly with research skills, a book is needed that outlines many of the main concepts in research methods that all students in an undergraduate programme in sport, exercise, kinesiology or health should understand clearly. Each of the concepts presented in the book is, I hope, delivered to students in a way that diverges from standard textbook definition modes of presentation. The concepts under examination in this book are presented using a form of narrative analysis which relays what the concepts mean in plain language, their significance in research, their bearing on how research is conducted, and how they are engaged in sport and exercise research. Entries revolve around a core methodological concept, practice or debate that students need to know before conducting research on their own subjects of interest, or for truly grasping research studies presented to them in other undergraduate modules.

Given all of the above, I selected 40 core concepts in research methodology for inclusion. Not all aspects of the concept are tackled in each section (such would be impossible!). Though the tone and content of the entries varies in certain degrees depending on the concept under review, each of the entries is structurally formatted in a similar manner. Following a brief introduction to the concept at hand, we unpack the significance of the concept by discussing: