مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

 مرور مدیریت ورزش – Sport Management Review

The field of sport-for-development (SFD) has undergone significant growth and diversification over the past 15 years. All over the world, sport-based development programs aim to contribute to positive social, cultural, educational, psychological, physical, and economic change for disadvantaged communities and their individual members (Levermore & Beacom, 2009; Schulenkorf & Adair, 2014). In their recent review of SFD literature, Schulenkorf, Sherry, and Rowe (2016) identified that research within the SFD domain has predominantly been undertaken with a qualitative research lens but data collection in the SFD field has been largely confined to traditional qualitative methods, such as interviews, observation, and document analysis. This finding provides evidence for recent calls that have been made to encourage more innovative, culturally appropriate, and technologically advanced research methods as well as locally relevant presentations of findings in different SFD settings (Carroll, Dew, & Howden-Chapman, 2011; Garbutt, 2009; Siefken, Schofield, & Schulenkorf, 2014, 2015).

In this article, we report on the specific research approaches, methodologies, and methods employed during investigatory SFD research across two research projects in the Pacific islands region. While both projects were funded under the same Australian government SFD international aid program, they had separate and specific development foci; hence, they required tailored approaches to research engagement and delivery. In presenting our practical research engagement in more detail, we provide a critical and applied discussion of qualitative research methods and approaches used in SFD. In doing so, we have a desire to inform the development of culturally sensitive approaches in SFD, and to further current debates by outlining the innovative, qualitative methods we employed to achieve this. In particular, we utilized reflective surveys, stories of change, and photovoice/videography, which have received limited focus in SFD research to date.