Developing an Instrument to Measure the Social Impact of Sport

March 18, 2013 - PRLog -- Companies, organizations, and governments often sponsor sport events and activities that help them to develop and communicate their sense of social responsibility. At the same time there is a push for accountability, for example, for-profit organizations must account to shareholders for any money spent and for the values accruing from those investments. On the other side of the equation, sports--from grassroots activities-- to professional teams—to large-scale events have been discussed as contributing to the social quality of life we enjoy. Importantly, many of these sports seek financial support via sponsorship from the corporate, nonprofit and government sectors. In response to these perspectives, this manuscript develops an instrument to measure the social impact of sport. The idea was to develop a measure that could help sport better account for contributions to society stemming from social capital, collective identities, health literacy, well-being and human capital accruing from sport. At the same time, the “Social Impact of Sport Scale” is envisioned as an instrument that sponsors of sport initiatives might utilize to measure their support, via sport, to society.  

Given the wealth of past research in this area, a detailed 75-item scale was developed but with the goal of usability, a shorter set of global measures was also developed. Results of a survey study find both the detailed scale and the short measurement instrument exhibit good measurement properties. There is also a limited examination of the scale in use. Importantly, for future research and applied use, all scale items, for the full and reduced measures are reported and their reliability and validity are discussed.

Authors:  Seung Pil Lee, University of Michigan; T. Bettina Cornwell, University of Oregon & University of Michigan; Kathy Babiak, University of Michigan