Strengthening the Practice of Exercise and Sport-Science Research

Abstract

Exercise and sport sciences continue to grow as a collective set of disciplines by investigating a broad array of basic and applied research questions. Despite the progress, there is room for improvement. A number of problems pertaining to reliability and validity of research practices hinder advancement and the potential impact of the field. These problems include: 1) inadequate validation of surrogate outcomes, 2) too few longitudinal and 3) replication studies, 4) limited reporting of null or trivial results, and 5) insufficient scientific transparency. The purpose of this review is to discuss these problems as they pertain to exercise and sport sciences based on their treatment in other disciplines, namely psychology and medicine, and propose a number of solutions and recommendations.