Weaving Lines of Inquiry: Promoting Transdisciplinarity as a Distinctive Way of Undertaking Sport Science Research

Abstract

The promotion of inter- and multidisciplinarity — broadly drawing on other disciplines to help collaboratively answer important questions to the field — has been an important goal for many professional development organisations, universities, and research institutes in sport science. While welcoming collaboration, this opinion piece discusses the value of transdisciplinary research for sports science. The reason for this is that inter- and multidisciplinary research are still bound by disciplinary convention — often leading sport science researchers to study about a phenomenon based on pre-determined disciplinary ways of conceptualising, measuring, and doing. In contrast, transdisciplinary research promotes contextualised study with a phenomenon, like sport, unbound by disciplinary confines. It includes a more narrative and abductive way of performing research, with this abduction likely opening new lines of inquiry for attentive researchers to follow. It is in the weaving of these lines where researchers can encounter new information, growing knowledge in-between, through, and beyond the disciplines to progressively entangle novel and innovative insights related to a phenomenon or topic of interest. To guide innovation and the development of such research programmes in sport science, we lean on the four cornerstones of transdisciplinarity proposed by Alfonso Montuori, exemplifying what they could mean for such research programmes in sport science.

Social and Cultural Constraints on Football Player Development in Stockholm: Influencing Skill, Learning, and Wellbeing

“…However, a distinctive feature of transdisciplinarity is weaving lines of inquiry that may have remained isolated from one another due to disciplinary traditions and perceived boundaries (Woods et al, 2021a ). In that spirit, we find a generative strand of conceptual alignment between socio-cognitive and ecological notions of values.…”

“…It has to be noted that knowledge about the environment is associated with the traditional modes of communication used by coaches, trainers, and practitioners in most sports organizations. Thus, coach education programmes are deeply infused with pedagogical methodologies dominated by the transmission of abstract knowledge about the performance environment (Vaughan et al, 2021 ; Woods et al, 2021a ).…”

“…To investigate the interacting constraints that continually shape relations between a society, culture, community and peoples psychological wellbeing, and skill development, we combine ecological approaches with transdisciplinary inquiry (Vaughan et al, 2019 ; Woods et al, 2021a ). Transcending disciplinary boundaries allows us to function in-between, through and beyond disciplinary conventions (Mahan, 1970 ; Woods et al, 2021b ), placing the phenomenon of interest, in this case, football player development, at the core of the research program, not a disciplinary way of doing or being per se (Montuori, 2013 ).…”

Joining with the Conversation: Research as a Sustainable Practice in the Sport Sciences

“…This uncertainty is what makes us attentive, actively listening to what the other has to share with us so that we can find ways to join with their experiences and carry the conversation on. Elsewhere, it has been suggested that this type of discourse is to take up with research as a journey, not a destination, where determinate pre-planning gives way to a progressively attuned responsiveness that sees the researcher selectively follow, and weave together, emergent lines of inquiry [ 40 ]. This is an approach to scientific inquiry that is undergone together , in which experiments are done with , not on , and observations are not about , but with .…”

Enriching Athlete—Environment Interactions in Youth Sport: The Role of a Department of Methodology

“…To move away from reductionist and siloed practices, researchers [ 28 , 41 , 42 ] have conceptualised a transdisciplinary framework for sport scientist and coach integration called a department of methodology (DoM). At the core of a DoM is a view of transdisciplinarity that (re)positions a collective of practitioners as an integrated, inquiry-based unit collaboratively solving development- and performance-based problems [ 41 , 42 ].…”