The importance of data-driven research in sport

ONE OF the outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the proliferation of sports seminars via videoconferencing platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. As a result, there was more extensive diversified audience participation that may not have been possible in ‘normal’ circumstances. In addition, these seminars have addressed several important issues such as athletes’ mental health during lockdown, racism, and gender and sport.

The seminars have drawn heavily on local and regional anecdotal evidence, demonstrating that sport goes ‘beyond a boundary.’ They have shown that a holistic understanding of sports must address the social, economic, political, administrative, and psychological factors that impact sporting stakeholders – such as athletes, coaches, officials, technical support teams, administrators, fans, and sponsors – directly and indirectly.

It is contended that there is a need to move beyond anecdotal evidence. There is a need for robust research to ascertain a deeper understanding of the important stories and cues emanating from the many seminars.

Such research will allow for large-scale numerical data on opinions, attitudes, and beliefs and the first-hand experiences and meanings of different sporting stakeholders.

The Caribbean needs more data-driven sports research.

A preponderance of historical narratives, biographies, and autobiographies on cricket, athletics, and football exists. The CAPE Sport and Physical Education introduced in 2014 included readings drawn from external regional sports scholars.

Data-driven sports research will provide a deeper understanding of complex situations and inform decisions for projects and actions to be undertaken.

For instance, data on the number of participants in any particular sport – such as cricket, football, swimming, hockey, golf, netball, basketball, or tennis – concerning demographic data such as age, gender, social class, religion, ethnicity, and geographical location can provide important insight to national governing bodies and sport ministries. Furthermore, such insight can lend itself to assessing existing policies and practices to find ways to be inclusive, especially when sporting organisations are supposed to represent the country.

Inherently, data-driven sports research allows for asking the questions of ‘why,’ ‘how,’ and ‘what’ is happening in the sport. It provides a cogent foundation for accountability and transparency of those charged with governing responsibilities. No logical room exists for feelings and guesstimates with robustly derived research data. Data-driven research allows all stakeholders to discuss any aspect of the sport.

Doing data-driven research necessitates being thick-skinned as it requires asking questions, especially in a multi-ethnic society that may be easily interpreted as controversial by those who are thin-skinned for one reason or the other.

However, these questions must be asked and addressed if any attempt is to move forward with a better understanding of practices and policies at all levels of the sports organisation.

Data-driven sports research in the Caribbean focusing on understanding, implementing, and monitoring best practices can result in research like these and others:

• Coakley, Jay, and Anita White. 1999. Making Decisions: How young people become involved and stay in sports.

• Coalter, Fred. 2010. Sport for Development impact study: A research initiative funded by Comic Relief and UK Sport and managed by International Development through Sport.

• Cote, J. 2008. Coaching children: Five elements of expertise for coaches.

• Cresswell, Scott L. 2009. Possible early signs of athlete burnout.

• Dagkas, Symeon, Tansin Benn and Haifaa Jawad. 2011. Multiple voices: Improving participation of Muslim girls in physical education and sport.

• Carrington, Ben. 2013. The critical sociology of race and sport: the first 50 years.

• Carter, Akilah, and Algerian Hart. 2010. Perspectives in mentoring: The Black female student-athlete.

• Hartmann, Douglas and Brooks Depro. 2006. Rethinking sports-based community crime prevention: A preliminary analysis of the relationship between midnight basketball and urban crime rates.

• Holt, Nicholas. Et al. 2011. Benefits and challenges associated with sport participation by children and parents from low-income families.

• Wheeler, Sharon. 2012. The significance of family culture for sports participation.

Sport Pulse and Sport Matters are fortnightly columns highlighting advances that impact Sport. We look forward to your continued readership

Dr Anand Rampersad, is the head, Academy of Sport, Faculty of Sport at The UWI St Augustine. He can be contacted at anand.rampersad@sta.uwi.edu.