oped, specifi ed and validated within the sports science literature. The use of these fi tness tests is not confi ned to pre- and post-testing in experiments, but fi tness surveys can also incorporate these tests (NIFS, 1989). Tests of visual perception, anticipation and decision making have also been developed and applied within soccer research (Carling et al., 2009: 43–69).
Observational research is a broad research type that can be undertaken using quantitative measurements or qualitative techniques. Where observa- tional research involves quantitative measurement, measurements of aspects of real-world behaviour are made rather than performances within a controlled fi tness test. The types of measure that can be made include counts of events, timings of behaviours and distances covered. Some of these measurements can be made with fully automated measurement techniques such as GPS equip- ment (Carling et al., 2009: 91–3), mainly automated systems, such as ProZone3® or systems requiring extensive operator activity (Montoye et al., 1996: 26-32). For recreational activity, pedometers and other movement detection devices can also be used (Montoye et al., 1996: 72–90).
Field notes
Field notes are produced and analysed during qualitative research that involves fi eld work. A researcher enters the fi eld either covertly or overtly for the purpose of investigating the activity of a group of interest. Field notes have a disadvantage compared to interview transcripts because the interview transcripts contain data that come directly from the participants.
Field notes may be written up after sessions in the fi eld and are limited by the researcher’s ability to recall the events that occurred. Spradley (1979:
74–6) recommended using four types of fi eld notes:
1. Short notes made during the fi eld episode – this is not always possible, especially if fi eld work is being done covertly.
2. Expanded notes to be made as soon as possible after a session in the fi eld.
3. A fi eld work journal reporting problems occurring during fi eld work.
4. A provisional running record of analysis and interpretation of fi eld data.
The use of fi eld notes is covered in greater detail in Chapter 9.
way in which human activity is investigated is largely infl uenced by assump- tions about the nature of human behaviour and conceptions of social reality.
Research methods can be classifi ed as objective and quantitative, or subjec- tive and qualitative. The research methods are based on approaches that have underlying assumptions about human behaviour that researchers should be aware of. Burrell and Morgan (1979) described two approaches (or paradigms) that research methods follow: the normative paradigm and the interpretive paradigm. An excellent description of Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) framework is provided in Cohen et al.’s (2007: 7–26) opening chapter and it is recommended that students undertaking any kind of research read it. Burrell and Morgan used a framework of the following four elements to compare and contrast the paradigms:
1. ontology;
2. epistemology;
3. human nature; and 4. methodology.
In this section, the fi rst three of elements of Burrell’s and Morgan’s frame- work will be discussed, as methods are discussed throughout the remainder of the chapter.
Ontology is concerned with assumptions relating to human existence and experience. The normative paradigm is based on the assumption of realism and that objects exist in a real outer world that is independent of different people’s views of the world and the objects in it. This means that this assumed real world and the objects within it can be investigated. Behaviour of people in this assumed real world can also be investigated assuming such behaviour can be portrayed in a manner that is independent of different people’s inter- pretations of the behaviour. The interpretive paradigm is based on the assumption of nominalism, which assumes that people label things in their own mind but these labels are personal and not universal representations of objects that are external to the person’s mind. Individuals are assumed to live in their own inner worlds with different views of issues and situations. The interpretive paradigm regards these individual world views as important enough to investigate in their own right. People experience life through their senses, reasoning and thoughts and assume the world is the way it is pre- sented to them by their own senses. The human brain is a biological neural network that may learn to represent things in different ways in different people. None of us actually knows if the way images, sounds, feelings, tastes and smells are presented to our inner selves the same way as they might be presented to other people by their sensory perceptions. This leads to deeply philosophical questions about whether a single real world actually exists.
The interpretive paradigm is an approach to research that is based on the assumption that individuals experience their own inner worlds.
Epistemology is concerned with how knowledge is represented and com- municated. The normative paradigm is based on the assumption of positiv- ism, which assumes that knowledge takes the form of objective tangible facts. Positivism assumes that knowledge consists of things that can be measured and classifi ed. This is related to the ontological assumption of realism, as positivism assumes that a measurement procedure can be devel- oped that can be applied by different people obtaining consistent results.
The interpretive paradigm views knowledge as more complex and personal representations of experience, beliefs and attitudes. Knowledge in the form of pictures, words, sounds, emotions and feelings are diffi cult to quantify and different people can draw different conclusions from data. The author was going to write ‘different people can draw different conclusions from the same data’, but are a person’s senses really presenting them with the same data as another person’s senses? Such data are interpreted using per- sonal opinion, which is related to the ontological assumption of nominal- ism. In sports performance, there are some situations where the assumption of positivism applies and other situations where antipositivism is more appropriate. Any weekend, when watching television coverage of football, a panel of analysts will watch the same video evidence of an incident and be aware of the same written regulations for the sport, but will still form different interpretations of the decision the referee should have made. In other situations such as tennis, there are fewer situations that are open to individual interpretation.
The human nature assumptions of Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) frame- work are crucial to understanding the research methods that are based on the assumptions of the normative and interpretive paradigms. Human nature assumptions relate to how humans behave in different situations.
The normative paradigm views human behaviour as deterministic, predict- able and past-oriented. The assumption of determinism is that humans behave in a similar way in given situations and that we can reason about the average human being. This permits reductive techniques to be applied and generalisations to be made from samples used in research studies. The meth- odologies supported by the normative paradigm are referred to as ‘nomoth- etic’ and are empirical methods that represent samples by summary sample parameters such as means and standard deviations. The interpretive para- digm, on the other hand, views human behaviour as being more future- oriented, voluntary and individual. Voluntarism assumes that humans will take responsibility and exercise free will in how they behave in different situations. Therefore, the interpretive paradigm rejects the notion of an average human being and supports idiographic methodologies that recog- nise and explore individual differences. Some individuals may be naturally more deterministic than others in the way they behave, conforming to behavioural norms.
When one considers those who have careers in the armed services, deter- minism is essential. These individuals are part of an organisation with a task
to perform where all must be trusted to obey orders so that the hierarchy of command will result in the task being accomplished. There are others who behave in a more individual manner, working in creative areas such as graphic design or the arts who will be allowed to behave in a more volun- tary way to display fl are and originality in their work. It is also common for the behaviour of some individuals to be deterministic in some situations and voluntaristic in other situations.
The normative paradigm
The normative paradigm is based on the assumption that there is a single real world that is independent of the view of individuals of that world. This not only applies to objects within the world but also to processes and rules that govern human behaviour. If behaviour is deterministic and predictable, then it follows that all humans behave in a similar way. Essentially, there is an assumption that there is an average human being that can be studied through an empirical approach. Human behaviour is abstracted to hard tangible facts that can be used to represent behaviour in a concise way, facilitating quantitative analysis. The quantitative methods used recognise variability about this average human being through measures of dispersion that are used along with measures of location when describing samples. The process of research involves the following steps:
1. Abstraction – representing human behaviour with a fi nger-print of cat- egorical and numerical variables.
2. Sampling – gathering data using a representative sample of the popula- tion of interest.
3. Summarising – determining sample parameters to describe the average participant.
4. Analysis – using statistical procedures to determine relationships and associations between the variables used.
5. Generalisation – assuming that a large enough random sample is repre- sentative of the population of interest.
Figure 2.3 summarises the process by which the sample parameters (mean and standard deviation for example) are generalised to the whole popula- tion. This type of research does recognise the possibility of sampling error, where a sample derived from a population may show an opposite pattern to the population. Statistical procedures will be covered in Chapter 8; at this stage we will simply understand that the p value that is often reported in quantitative research is the probability of a Type I Error. A Type I Error is made when a difference found in a sample does not actually exist in the wider population. Whether or not a Type I Error has been made will be unknown to the researcher, but the chance of a Type I Error can be reported.
As an example of sampling error, the author supervised three time-motion
analysis studies of men’s Gaelic football in 1999, 2000 and 2001 that used identical methods and participant numbers. The fi rst student found that midfi elders spent a signifi cantly greater percentage of match time perform- ing high intensity activity than defenders and forwards; the second student found no differences between these three groups; and the third student found that midfi elders spent a signifi cantly lower percentage of match time performing high intensity activity than defenders and forwards! At least two of these projects have a sampling error. However, all were done correctly because the two projects that reported differences also reported p values that acknowledged there was a small chance of a Type I Error, while the other student acknowledged there was a chance that he made a Type II Error. A Type II Error is where there is a difference for the population in reality that is not revealed when analysing the sample used.
The interpretive paradigm
There are many challenges to natural science approaches to social science.
Human beings have an active consciousness and exercise choice. This is particularly relevant to performance analysis because sportsmen and sports- women are goal-oriented and ambitious. These individuals, particularly elite athletes, are unique with important individual characteristics and expe- riences that are lost from analysis where the research paradigm tries to sum- marise these different real individuals as an abstract average elite athlete.
The interpretive paradigm rejects the image of human beings as passive determined organisms that respond to stimuli from their environment in a
Unknown population
Sampling
Sample Analysis
Generalising
Sample parameters Unknown population parameters
Figure 2.3 Populations and samples in empirical research
past-oriented manner. The interpretive paradigm also rejects the notion of an absolute reality, recognising the importance of the inner worlds that indi- viduals create and modify. Knowledge is assumed to take the form of softer more personal information, including language and thoughts that are ana- lysed using idiographic methodologies.
Cohen et al. (2007: 22–5) provided an excellent description of three differ- ent variations of the approach promoted by the interpretive paradigm:
phenomenology, ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism. Phenomen- ology is based on the assumptions of an active consciousness and an inner world where a person refl ects and learns. Phenomenology is suited to the analysis of the lived experiences of persons of interest. Behaviour is deter- mined by internal phenomena rather than an external objective physical world. There are two different types of phenomenology; Husserl’s transcen- dental phenomenology and Schutz’s existential phenomenology.
Transcendental phenomenology studies face value experiences of phenomena rather than preconceptions or media portrayals of them. Existential phenom- enology views experience as being an unbroken stream of consciousness rather than individual experiences that have little meaning on their own.
Ethnomethodology studies how people make sense of the social world that they experience and their social interactions. In particular, ethnometh- odology studies group behaviour and cultures that have developed through the interactions of group members. Linguistic ethnomethodology studies the use of language, while situational ethnomethodology studies how people negotiate during the situations they experience.
Symbolic interactionism assumes that people’s action towards objects and other people is determined by the meaning that they place on those objects. This is antipositivism whereby different people’s views of objects is assumed rather than an absolute outer world that is independent of people’s views. A person’s inner world is assumed to be a dynamic concept that is continually constructed and modifi ed as people experience different situa- tions and weigh up the potential response of others as well as advantages and disadvantages of the behavioural choices they have. This is relevant in performance analysis of sport as it impacts on our understanding of how athletes and coaches think, learn and use information.
Critical theory
Cohen et al. (2007: 26–32) described a third paradigm called ‘critical theory’, which is relevant to the practical application of performance analy- sis. The normative and interpretive paradigms are viewed as incomplete as the political and ideological contexts of research are not addressed. Critical theory goes beyond describing behaviour in an accepted normal situation by realising changes to the situation. Cohen et al. (2007: 26–32) used terms such as ‘emancipate the disempowered’, which biomechanists and nota- tional analysts would not typically use in their research and teaching.
However, when one considers the four stages of description, information, confrontation and reconstruction used in critical refl ection (Smyth, 1989), critical theory is closer to the way performance analysts work in practice than the normative and interpretive paradigms.
The performance analyst working with a squad will analyse relevant aspects of squad performance, providing a description of the current situa- tion. This would be the end point of descriptive research, but performance analysis in its coaching context has several more stages of a critical refl ec- tion and performance enhancement process. A thorough analysis of sports performance data identifi es areas of the squad’s performance that can improve. This challenges the status quo of the squad’s situation within the sport, informs areas of ‘illegitimacy’ of the situation and threatens the inter- ests of dominant squads. The confrontation stage is also relevant to per- formance analysis in practice as the squad is not so much asking if they can improve but how they can improve. The reconstruction stage is where deci- sions are made relating to squad preparation to specifi cally improve the performance of the squad. The effectiveness of this action is evaluated during analysis of training and subsequent competition.
The research methodology most underpinned by critical theory is action research, described earlier in this chapter. Critical theory has a transforming intention and seeks to ensure the catalytic validity of research, meaning that the research can be an agent of change in practice. This is exactly why performance analysis is used by coaches and athletes.