ABSTRACT
This chapter examines disciplinary traditions: reviews of a number of academic disciplines and their approaches to sport research, including sociology, economics, geography, psychology, social psychology, history and philosophy. Terminology: approaches, dimensions, issues: examination of a number of mainly dichotomous concepts which characterise research approaches and methods. The bulk of published sport research has arisen, not from the demands of the sport industries, but from the interests of academics who owe allegiance to a particular discipline. The Sport research involves the collection, analysis and presentation of statistical information. Hypothetical-deductive: quantitative research conforms to the hypothetical-deductive model discussed under positivism above. Invariably statistical methods and tests, such as chi-square tests, t-tests, analysis of variance, correlation or regression, are used. This model is implicit in many discussions of quantitative methods. The methods used to gather qualitative information include observation, informal and in-depth interviewing, participant observation and analysis of texts.
