What is sport science?

• Exercise/health physiology - understand the effects of exercise on the body
• Performance psychology - how do you get someone to perform at the highest level possible when physiology is identical to another person's?
• Exercise/health psychology - why do we exercise? What stressors and other factors how well we perform?
• Biochemistry - what happens at a cellular level when exercising?
• Rehabilitation - how to rehabilitate the body?
• Biomechanics - how the body moves with specialist equipment
• Motor control and learning - learn how the body moves when performing; how we control our actions
• Coaching - teaching how to play sport using the correct techniques
• Talent ID/development - looking at elite athletes from a population
  

Sport science is knowledge about physical activity obtained and tested through scientific methods.

Sources of knowledge:

• Superstition (personal rituals before and event)
• Tradition (going with a person's beliefs/culture)
• Authority (teachers/coaches telling us what to do and how to do it)
• Pure thinking; common sense; personal experience

Scientific methods/ideas (Bronowski, 1978):

• Order to the universe; capable of being described and studied
• Cause and effect relationships
• Observations can be made

Scientific characteristics:

• Process for helping varify the reliability of knowledge
• Is generalisable - replicable and explicit
• Is dynamic - changing and evolving

Research is an active, diligent and systematic process of inquiry in order to discover, interpret or revise things.

The research process:

• Review the literature
• Define problem
• Formulate hypothesis
• Design study
• Gather data
• Analyse/interpret data
• Write report

Secondary sources (reviewing the literature):

• Articles (journals, magazines, newspapers)
• Textbooks
• Internet