1. METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH IN SPORT Goran Sporis, PhD.

2. Classification of variables
Variable label
Type
Measure
Classification for analysis decisions
Gender
String
Nominal
Categorical
Weight
Numeric
Scale
Continuous
Sprint 5 meter

3. Choosing a statistic when there is one outcome variable
Type of variable
Number of times measured in each participant
Statistics
Binary
Once
Descriptive statistic; Frequencies
Twice
McNemar’s chi-square
Continuous
Test for normality, One sampe t-test
Paired t-test
Three or more
Anova

4. Choosing a statistic when there is one outcome variable and one explanatory variable
Type of outcome variable
Type of explanatory variable
Number of levels of the categorical variable
Statistic
categorical
both values are binary
Chi-square
Logistic regression
continuous
Categorical variable is multi-level and ordered
Spearman’s correlation coefficient
Explanatory variable is binary
Independent sample t-test

5. Choosing a statistic when there is one outcome variable and one explanatory variable
Type of outcome variable
Type of explanatory variable
Number of levels of the categorical variable
Statistic
continuous
categorical
Explanatory variable has three or more categories
Analysis of variance
No categorical variables
Regression
Pearson’s correlation
No outcome variable
Both noncontinuous and categorical
Categorical variables can have two or more levels
Factor analysis

6. Parametric vs. non-parametric statistic
Parametric test
Non-parametric equivalent
Mean and standard deviation
Median and inter-quartile range
Pearson’s correlation coefficient
Spearman’s or Kendall’s correlation coefficinet
Two sample t-test
Wilcoxon rank sum test
Independent t-test
Mann-Whitney U or
Analysis of variance
Mann-Whitney U test
Repeated measures analysis of variance
Friedman’s ANOVA test

7. Some rules for reporting numbers
In a sentence, numbers less than 10 are words;
In a sentence, number 10 or more are numbers;
Try and avoid starting a sentence with a number;
Use a zero before the decimal point when the number is less than 1 (e.g. the P value was 0.012);
Do not use a space between a number and its per cent sign;
Use one space between a number and its unit (179 cm);
Report percentage to only one decimal place if the sample size is larger than 100;
Report percentage with no decimal place if the sample size is less than 100;
P values between and 0.05 should be reported to three decimal places.
P values shown on output as should be reported as <

8. Scientific writing:
From time immemorial, it has been known that the ingestion of an “apple” (i.e., the pomme/fruit of any tree of the genus Malus, the said fruit being usually round in shape and red, yellow, or greenish in color) on a diurnal basis will, with absolute certainity, keep a primary member of the health care establishment absent from one’s local environment.

9. An apple a day keeps the doctor away

10. Databases Medicine: Medline
Biology: BIOSIS Previews (Biological abstracts)
Physics: INSPEC
Chemistry: Chemical abstracts
Economy: EconLit
Information/library science: LISA
Psychology: PsychINFO
Sociology: Sociological Abstracts
Philosophy: Philosopher’s Index
Languages: Modern language abstracts
Kinesiology: Medline, SportDiscus, SCI;

11. US Nat. Lib. Med. – 24,000 journals, index in Medline 4,000.
Science Citation Index (SCI): 5,600

12. Number of citations in 2010 on articles published in 2009 and 2008
Impact factor
Number of citations in 2010 on articles published in 2009 and 2008
IF2010 =
Number of articles published in 2009 and 2008

13. Research power Experiment Cohort study DBRCT RCT CT
Cross section study
Case series
Case report
Quality of research