Doing real world research in sport studies / edited by, Andy Smith and Ivan Waddington
Imprint
New York : Routledge, 2014
Descript
xx, 230 p. ; 24 cm
SUMMARY
Traditional research methods textbooks tend to present an idealized and simplistic picture of the research process. This ground-breaking text however, features leading international sport researchers explaining how they actually carried out their real life research projects, highlighting the practical day-to-day problems, false starts and setbacks that are a normal part of the research process.
This book focuses on ten pieces of research that have made a distinctive and valuable contribution to the study of sport. For each one the author of that research explains how the project was conducted and the issues that they faced. In addition, each piece of research has a commentary from a leading sport scholar outlining why it is regarded as being an important contribution to the discipline of sport studies and how that research can inform studies being carried out today.
Contributors to the book describe how in their own real life research projects, they initially conceptualized and defined their research projects ; secured funding and/or sponsorship from relevant bodies ; handled enforced changes to the research plans ; confronted/overcame obstacles presented by outside bodies ; managed inter-personal/emotional relationships in the research encounter ; managed possible threats to their personal safety or physical integrity ; managed good luck, bad luck and serendipitous findings ; dealt with favourable and hostile media reaction to research findings.
Doing Real World Research in Sport Studies enables students and researchers to develop a more realistic understanding of what the research process actually involves. It charts the development of key research projects in sport and should be essential reading for any sport research methods course. -- Provided by publisher
CONTENT
Real life research: the inside story -- 1. Researching the world of professional football -- Commentary: Sports medicine goes under the knife: the dissection of athlete healthcare -- 2. Darwin's athletes: a retrospective after 15 years -- Commentary: Racism, sports research and political failure -- 3. Habitus as topic and tool: reflections on becoming a prizefighter -- Commentary: Three funerals, two weddings, four births and a baptism: on the importance of embodying sociology -- 4. Mischief managed: ticker scalping, research ethics and involved detachment -- Commentary: The ups and downs of hanging out with ticket scalpers: reflections on doing ethnographic research -- 5. Bodybuilding, drugs and risk: reflections on an ethnographic study -- Commentary -- Raising the bar in bodybuilding research: a commentary on bodybuilding, drugs and risk by Lee F. Monaghan
