We need article reporting standards for quantitative research in sport and exercise science: an educational narrative review.

Abstract

In recent decades, there has been a substantial increase in the number of published studies across numerous scientific disciplines, including the sport and exercise sciences. However, it has been argued that this increase in quantity has, unfortunately, been accompanied by concerns regarding the quality of study design, methodological transparency, and results reporting. To address these pitfalls, several scientific communities, including the American Psychological Association (APA) Journal Article Reporting Standard (JARS) Working Group and numerous biostatisticians, have developed checklists and guidelines to improve reporting quality and ensure that scientific knowledge is accessible, interpretable, and useful to practitioners and clinicians. In the present review, databases for existing guidelines were screened to synthesize current reporting standards and provide an overview of the guidance that could be applied within the sport and exercise sciences. Although numerous adjacent disciplines have produced detailed guidelines, in some cases through dedicated reporting-standard task forces and working groups, no comprehensive and institionally-anchored guidelines dedicated to sport or exercise sciences were identified among the > 700 guidelines listed by the EQUATOR Network. Similarly, no reporting-standard working group, discipline-specific quality checklist, or globally accepted and implemented reporting standard appears to exist through major international organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) or the European College of Sport Science (ECSS). The present review highlights an urgent need to form an interdisciplinary working group to close this important gap in the literature and develop consensus guidelines for reporting research methodologies in the sport and exercise sciences.