What Goes Around Comes Around

Abstract

Sport and exercise psychology research appearing in Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport (RQES) over the past 75 years can be characterized by re-emerging themes—hot topics in the 1930s remain hot topics now. Re-emerging themes include sportsmanship/moral development, social development/significant others, self-perceptions, attitudes/motivation, modeling/observational learning, emotion/arousal/anxiety, competition/achievement orientations, and gender roles. Although research paradigms and methodologies have changed, these topics have endured. We also identified dominant emergent themes appearing in RQES over the last 25 years: measurement development and validation; physical activity adoption and adherence; and multidisciplinary approaches to psychological issues. Given the many specialty journals and trends toward integrating models and methods from multiple disciplines, we suggest that RQES adopt a multidisciplinary focus for research in the field of kinesiology.

Key words:

• measurement
• multidisciplinary
• physical activity
• research trends

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maureen R. Weiss

Please address all correspondence concerning this article to Maureen R. Weiss, Kinesiology Program, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400407, 210 Emmet Street, South, Charlottesville, VA 22903-4407.