METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH IN SPORT

Goran Sporis, PhD. Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

Classification of variables

Variable label

Type

Measure

Classification for analysis decisions Categorical Continuous

Gender Weight

String Numeric

Nominal Scale

Sprint 5 meter

Numeric

Scale

Continuous

Choosing a statistic when there is one outcome variable

Type of variable

Number of times measured in each participant Once Twice Once

Statistics

Binary Binary Continuous

Descriptive statisitc; Frequencies McNemars chi-square Test for normality, One sampe t-test

Continuous
Continuous

Twice
Three or more

Paired t-test
Anova

Choosing a statistics when there is one outcome variable and one explanaory variable
Type of outcome variable categorical Type of explanatory variable categorical Number of levels of the categotical variable both values are binary Statistic

Chi-square Logistic regression

categorical

continuous

Categorical variable is multi-level and ordered Explanatory variable is binary

Spearmans correlation coefficient

continuous

categorical

Indepondant sample t-test

Choosing a statistics when there is one outcome variable and one explanaory variable
Type of outcome variable continuous Type of explanatory variable categorical Number of levels of the categotical variable Explonatory variable has three or more categories No categorical variables Statistic

Analysis of variance

continuous

continuous

Regression Pearsons correlation Factor analysis

No outcome variable

Both Categorical nontinuous variables can and categorical have two or more levels

Parametric vs. non-parametric statistic

Parametric test
Mean and standard deviation Pearsons correlation coefficinet Two sample t-test Independant t-test Analysis of variance Repeated measures analysis of variance

Non-parametric equivalent
Median and inter-quartile range Spearmans or Kendalls correlation coefficinet Wilcoxon rank sum test Mann-Whitney U or Wilcoxon rank sum test Mann-Whitney U test Friedmans ANOVA test

Some rules for reporting numbers

1. 2. 3. 4. In the sentence, nubers less than 10 are words; In the sentence, number 10 or more are numbers; Try and avoid starting a sentence with number; Use a zero before the decimal point when number are less than 1 (The P value was 0.012); 5. Do not use a space between a number and its per cent sign; 6. Use one space between a nubmer and its unit (179 cm); 7. Report percentage to only one decimal place if the sample size is lager than 100; 8. Report percentage with no decimal place if the sample size is less than 100; 9. P values between 0.001 and 0.05 should be reported to three decimal places. 10. P values shown on output as 0.000 should be reported as <0.0001.

Scientific writing:
From the time immemorial, it has been known that the ingestion of an apple (i.e., the pomme fruit of any tree of the

genus Malus, said fruit being usually round in shape and red, yellow, or greenish in color) on a diurnal basis will with apsolute certainity keep a primary member of the health care establishment absent from ones local environment.

 An apple a day keeps doctor away

Databases

Medicine: Medline Biology: BIOSIS Previews (Biological abstracts) Physics: INSPEC Chemistry: Chemical abstracts Economy: EconLit Information/library science: LISA Psychology: PsychINFO Sociology: Sociological Abstracts Philosophy: Philosophers Indeks Languages: Modern language abstracts Kinesiology: Medline, SportDiscus, SCI;

 US Nat. Lib. Med. - 24 000 journals, index

in Medline 4.000.
Science Citation Index (SCI): 5.600

Impact factor

Number of citation in 2010 on atricles publish in 2009 i 2008 IF2010 = Number of atricle publish 2009 i 2008

Research power
Experiment
DBRCT RCT CT

Quality of research

Cohort study
Cross section study case series Case report

How to decide were to publish?

Performance analysis Experimental orientation

Experimental orientation has been connected with the process of solving three crucial, interrelated methodological issues:

Kinesiometric issues should have been solved to find out instruments and procedures adequate for unbiased measurement and assessment of the components of training effects and sport form. Issues related to data analysis methods should have been also solved, that is, certain ways should have been found to process the collected data and to transform them into clusters of useful information for operational purposes of designing training programmers. Didactic issues should have been solved, that is, optimal methods and algorithms should have been defined for designing of efficient programmers of sport training, competition and recovery, as well as for training effects control in various points and cycles of sport preparation.

METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH ON TEAM SPORT GAMES

Several directions are recognisable in the research on sport games; 1. measurement and assessment of basic and specific anthropological characteristics and performance indicators, 2. factorial studies aimed at determination of latent structure of variedly structured manifest variables assessing particular components of preparedness (fitness) of players, 3. studies on relations between predictor variables and variedly defined criterion variables describing performance, 4. studies on the differences among samples of subjects in indicators of fitness and sport form, divided according to age, gender, sport experience and sport quality, 5. studies aimed at determination of training effects, that is, of influence of various progammes of training on transformation of abilities, characteristics and motor knowledge (skills) at various points in the periodisation of sport preparation.