Abstract
This commentary reflects on my experience of compiling the <em>Value of Sport Monitor</em>—an on-line resource of policy-relevant, research on the social impacts of sport—for eight years. The commentary critically evaluates the assumption of the <em>Value of Sport Monitor</em> that social science research in sport is cumulative and it explores sports interest groups’ varying attitudes to the nature of evidence. It illustrates that widespread conceptual and methodological inconsistencies and weaknesses in research greatly reduce the ability to identify best practice and ‘best buys’ as a basis for policy. The commentary concludes by proposing that a way forward for research to contribute to policy and practice is via theory-based evaluation.
Highlights
Keywords evidence-based policy; methodological weaknesses, sports research; theory-based evaluation. Issue This commentary is part of the issue “Sport for Social Inclusion: Questioning Policy, Practice and Research”, edited by Reinhard Haudenhuyse (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium). This commentary is based on my experience of compiling the Value of Sport Monitor between 2004 and 2012
This was funded by Sport England and UK Sport and was an on-line data base of English language policy-relevant sports research covering the following topics:
The task was to identify research which proved the claims that sport interest groups make about its contribution to the solution of public problems
Summary
This commentary is based on my experience of compiling the Value of Sport Monitor between 2004 and 2012. The 1999 white paper Modernising Government (Cabinet Office, 1999) stated ‘this Government expects more of policy makers...better use of evidence and research in policy making and better focus on policies that will deliver long term goals’ In such circumstances the relatively untested claims of sport’s wider social contributions came under much closer scrutiny and robust research to inform evidencebased policy-making was in short supply. In a review of evidence of the socio-economic benefits of sport participation for the Conference Board of Canada, Bloom, Grant and Watt (2005, preface) concluded that ‘policy makers lack the evidence required to make informed policy decisions and to connect sport issues to other priorities’ Such comments illustrate that another rationale for the Monitor was to add legitimacy to what was a relatively marginal policy area. The increased emphasis on evidence of effectiveness can be viewed as part of the struggle to establish legitimacy in the eyes of other established policy fields (e.g., health; crime), dominated by high status professionals, with an assumed accumulated body of systematic and ‘scientific’ knowledge, who express scepticism about sport’s claims to funding related to their policy areas
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