Knowledge Mobilization Archives - The Sport Information Resource Centre

Concussion education can help improve athletes’ concussion knowledge and attitude towards reporting a suspected concussion to a coach or other adult. Research shows that concussion education may be particularly effective when delivered in more than one way, for example, through a video and a team presentation. When planning concussion education for your team or organization, consider using multiple strategies, as it can lead to more comprehensive education and can help reinforce the most important points.

Female endurance athletes have an increased risk of relative energy deficiency syndrome (REDs). Female cross-country runners have the highest incidence of stress fractures of all collegiate sports. Research regarding athlete, coach, and athletic trainer awareness of REDs showed that while athletic trainers have the most knowledge of the syndrome, athletes have the least. This suggests that athlete-directed education is needed.

Sport and physical activity research can get stuck sitting in the pages of academic journals. Integrated knowledge translation is one way to make sure that doesn’t happen! Integrated knowledge translation involves meaningful collaboration between researchers and knowledge users to help bridge the gap between research and practice.

To govern effectively, a board must become more knowledgeable about its members and stakeholders and understand their values and priorities. Only after focusing on this primary relationship can the board lead. A steward-leadership approach can help sport organization boards to provide vision and direction for the organization while enabling staff to apply their expertise, exercise creativity and grow as persons.

Research on role clarity highlights 4 characteristics that help to identify how well athletes understand their roles on a team. Coaches can help athletes to understand their role by ensuring they know (1) the scope of their responsibilities, (2) the necessary behaviours to fulfil their role, (3) how coaches will evaluate role performance, and (4) the consequences of failing to fulfil the role’s responsibilities.

Sport participants are at greater risk from air pollution, as they are often breathing hard and through their mouths, bypassing the nose’s natural filtration system. Air pollution in the short term can cause asthma flare ups, and in the long-term can increase one’s risk of serious conditions like lung cancer. To protect themselves, sport participants should check the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) to inform decisions regarding outdoor activities.

Boards in sport organizations can improve their effectiveness by functioning as a team of equals. The importance of teamwork is easily appreciated in sport. For effective teamwork, individual board members need to recognize that their authority exists only as a group, with the board chair serving as the steward-leader to the board.

To mark World Inclusion Day (October 10, 2022), SIRC wanted to focus on information about inclusive communications in sport. This blog post emphasizes why sport administrators, sport organizations and coaches should improve how inclusive they are, specifically in all the ways they communicate. It also highlights ways to check communications to make everyone in their audiences feel included, respected, accepted and valued.

Inclusivity has nothing to do with political correctness. Everyone has the right to be communicated with in a respectful, accurate and equitable way, rather than being “othered,” made to feel inferior, demeaned, overlooked or excluded.

Anyone should be able to access communications, in some form, unless the communications are for a specific audience only. For example, a message may be of relevance only to elementary students who are already registered for a July 2023 soccer camp in Brandon, Manitoba.

While organizations are adopting hiring strategies and training plans to encourage more inclusiveness, there’s room to do better. Communications in sport is one area in which everyone from coaches to sport administrators can improve inclusivity. This means more than adding pronouns to your social media profiles and email signatures. It also means going beyond using gender-neutral words like replacing “linesman” with “line judge” or “linesperson.”

Why inclusivity matters

Efforts to consciously improve inclusivity in sport communications can help reduce how often microaggressions, prejudices and biases are introduced or reinforced. Without such efforts, communications can negatively affect diverse audiences based on their beliefs, abilities, gender, skin colour, income, education, culture, sexual orientation, first language, height, weight, backgrounds or other identities.

The stakes are high. Without inclusive communications, your messages may not reach or resonate with certain individuals or entire community groups. At worst, you risk unintentionally disrespecting or harming people.

When sport administrators, organization staff or coaches create, share or “like” communications that aren’t inclusive, their audiences will react in different ways. Audiences may overlook a misstep if they know you well. But, even fans will react if they feel they’re repeatedly excluded or disrespected. Such audiences may:

view you or your organization as less credible
disconnect by unsubscribing or not opening, reading, following, viewing or listening to your communications
take offence
form a negative opinion about you or your organization
complain to others within the sport community or to influencers
call out you and your organization publicly (for example, on social media, through blogs or podcasts, in letters to the editor, in interviews with traditional media)
pursue disciplinary or legal action

Making communications more inclusive

Inclusion spans all types of communications, such as emails, consent forms, medical forms, registration forms, presentation slides, surveys, speeches, annual reports, consultations, website content, social media posts, emails, videos, letters, signage, announcements, help files, transcripts, meeting agendas and minutes, data reports, team names, everything.

To be inclusive, sport administrators, organizations and coaches must be mindful as they plan their communications, before they’re created, approved or shared. Part of planning can be to prioritize the most frequently used communications. Then, after improving those communications, move on to other types. So, maybe start with emails and social media content, then review website content, handbooks, training material, and so on.

Signs that your communications could be more inclusive might be that you’re using words that reflect outdated views of families. For example, you might currently be addressing emails to “parents” instead of to “parents and guardians” or your forms might have a line only for “parent’s signature.” That doesn’t account for any children and teens who are raised by other family or community members, live in foster care or stay in a group home.

Maybe the term “coast to coast” appears in your messages, instead of “coast to coast to coast” to account for all Canada’s bordering oceans (Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific). Or maybe you refer to “he/she” or “his/hers” when you could avoid using gender pronouns. Or maybe your memes and photos only show people of one gender, who are white and without disabilities. If so, what steps can you take?

Strategies to improve inclusivity

Missteps happen, language evolves and demographics change over time, so you won’t always get everything right. What matters is that you learn from any mistakes and strive to do better. Asking people how they want to be addressed and what terms you may use when communicating about or to them.

Remember to also consider everyone who communicates on your behalf. For example, an assistant coach may send out messages when you’re on vacation or someone else may manage social media posts for your organization. Make sure they’re all aware of the steps you’re taking to be more inclusive.

Sample strategies:

Provide communications in multiple formats, whenever possible (audio, video or infographic content may be better for people who live with dyslexia or attention deficits, experienced concussions or have learned English or French later in life)
Create a list of respectful, inclusive words or terms to replace outdated or non-inclusive ones (see examples in Table 1) and tweak that list as you learn more
Choose visuals, interviews and focus groups that include people reflecting the diversity of those with whom you communicate
Aim for person-centred language (ask their chosen words, acronyms or initialisms such as LGBTQ2 or 2SLGBTQIA+), and if it’s not possible to ask, use person-first language (“person experiencing homelessness,” not “the homeless”)
Delete courtesy titles or salutations like Ms., Mr., or Dr. (for people with a Ph.D.), and instead insert the person’s initials or full name (or use Mx. in cases when you can’t avoid a courtesy title and don’t know someone’s gender)
Be an inclusivity model and advocate for inclusion
Consider whether skin colour, gender, age, abilities, religion, culture, physical attributes or other dimensions and characteristics are relevant (if not, don’t add them, and if relevant, be specific, clear and respectful)
Switch from passive to active voice
Write in the second person (you, your) to avoid listing multiple gender pronouns
Make nouns plural to simplify use of “they” and “their” or adopt singular “they”

More inclusivity tips are available in the resources at the end of this blog post.

Table 1. Sample words to replace non-inclusive words

Neurogenerative disease is more common in former professional soccer players than in the general population. However, disease risk varies by player position and career length, and this pattern has remained consistent for decades. These findings can help inform strategies to reduce head impact exposure for athletes.

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