Research question: As nations are increasingly
investing public money in elite sport, policy makers are required to justify
their decisions. A commonly used justification is that elite sport will trigger
a wide range of benefits for the population. However, robust empirical evidence
is limited and tools to evaluate the societal impact are lacking. Therefore,
this study aimed to develop and test a quantitative measurement scale assessing
the public’s perception of the positive and negative societal impact of elite
sport.
Research methods: Scale development commenced by
formulating items based on a total of 84 societal impacts of elite sport,
detected during a systematic review. Next, a representative sample from the
Belgian population (n=1102) was surveyed. An exploratory (EFA) followed by two
confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) ware performed to assess and increase the
scale’s adequacy. Multivariate analysis was employed to examine the role of
contextual and individual variables.
Results and Findings: After a process of item
exclusion, a 32-item model remained from which the goodness-of-fit indices were
excellent, indicating high reliability. Furthermore, the results indicate that
the Belgian population generally perceived more positive than negative societal
impacts of elite sport.
Implications: The developed Measuring Elite Sports’
Societal Impact (MESSI) scale can serve as a useful tool for researchers
seeking to measure the positive and negative impacts of elite sport to society
and compare them across different nations. Moreover, the MESSI results could
support evidence-based decision-making regarding elite sport investments.
Key words: elite sport; elite sport policy; impact;
outcomes; scale development
| Periode | 15 dec 2017 |
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| Evenementstitel | 22ste VK Symposium 2017 |
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| Evenementstype | Conference |
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| Locatie | Brussel, Belgium |
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| Mate van erkenning | Regional |
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