ABSTRACT
For many sport students, the importance of theory within a research project can be a difficult issue, yet it is one of the most important considerations, and in many cases underpins the entire research project. Unfortunately there is a tendency for many students, once they have identified a research question, to get carried away and go straight into the data collection stage of the research, arguing that the data alone is key to answering the question. What is required, however, is an appropriate theoretical framework within which such data can be analysed, interpreted and explained. This chapter introduces some of the issues related to choosing your theoretical framework, and relating this theoretical framework to your study. Theories are constructed from concepts, and a key process here is to identify exactly what concepts are involved, their relationships to each other, and how they are to be investigated, so that your data can be related to your choice of theoretical framework. This is the process of developing your conceptual
Introduce the role and importance of theory within your research project.
