Sports Development

The evaluation of projects, initiatives, programmes, and policies associated with sports development is crucial and has been somewhat exercised in the field. However, the extent to which this practice is embraced, the quality of evaluations, whether they are planned in advance, the resources allocated to support them, and the use of evaluation results to improve sports development efforts is another matter entirely. Given that evaluation in sports development is still in its early stages as a standard practice, this chapter aims to clarify foundational concepts related to evaluation. It then introduces common approaches and methods used in the field of sports development, comparing key principles, evaluation designs, and their respective strengths and weaknesses.