Invitation to research: Please read the text on this page as it explains the project and your rights as a participant.
My name is Dr Paul Appleton and I am a researcher at the Institute of Sport at Manchester Met University, UK. I am leading a research project with researchers from seven other countries which is being funded by the International Olympic Committee. The project aims to understand whether there is a relationship between coaching styles and athletes’ experiences of violence in sport, as well as whether these experiences predict their current psychological health.
Why have I been invited?
This study is aiming to recruit 3200 (400 per country) adults who participate in sport. You have been invited to participate in this study because you currently participate in sport.
Do I have to take part?
Participation in this project is completely voluntarily and you do not have to take part if you do not want to. If you do decide to participate in the project, we would be grateful.
What will I be asked to do?
If you decide to take part in the project, you will be asked to complete a questionnaire that takes approximately 20 minutes to complete. The questionnaire will be available to you on the next webpage should you decide to participate in this project. If you do decide to participate in the project, you will be invited to complete the questionnaire 3 times over the next 12 months (questionnaire one today, questionnaire two in 6 months, and questionnaire 3 in 12 months). The questionnaire will ask you about your experiences in sport and your psychological health.
Are there any risks if I participate?
The risks associated with taking part in this project are minimal and do not exceed those an average person would experience in their daily lives.
One section of the online survey will require you to answer questions about your experiences of psychological, physical and sexual violence in sport (from other athletes and coaches). Although any question about experiences of violence has the potential to cause distress, previous research on maltreatment and violence has shown that:
- The incidence and magnitude of distress experienced as a result of taking part in the study is low (and may be no different to distress in everyday life).
- Individuals generally report that they do not regret participation in the research.
- For the low number of participants who find answering questions about maltreatment, violence and abuse upsetting, the majority agree that these questions are important to ask and any distress is not intense or long lasting.
- Participation in research concerning violence is a positive experience for many individuals, with the benefits outweighing the costs.
We are therefore confident there will be a positive benefit-to-risk ratio for the majority of participants who will take part in this study.
However, we also recognise that some people may not wish to answer questions relating to experiences of violence in sport. Therefore, you are welcome not to answer any question and/or full sections of the online survey if it is causing you any form of distress.
Equally, after reading this information you may decide you do not want to participate in this project. If you decide you do not want to participate, please scroll to the bottom of the page and click “I do not want to participate in this project”.
Are there any advantages if I participate?
There are no immediate advantages to taking part in the project. However, you will be helping us to understand more about how coaching can influence people’s experiences of violence in sport and their psychological health.
Informed consent
If you agree to participate in this project, please click on “I want to participate in this project” at the bottom of this webpage after reading the rest of the information. You will then be taken to a webpage where you will be asked a number of questions relating to giving your informed consent to participate in the project.
What information about me will you collect and why?
The questionnaire will ask you to give you age, gender, country of birth, country that you currently live in, sexuality, ethnicity, disability, your main sport, how long you have participated in this sport, and how many years you have been coached by your main coach. This information will help us to provide a description of the sample in each country.
We will also ask you to provide your main email address. This will allow us to contact you in the future about completing the 2nd and 3rd survey. It will also mean we can match your responses across the three questionnaires.
How will my information be stored and how will we look after it?
Once we have completed the data collection for the 3rd questionnaire, we will ensure that your email address is deleted from all final data sets. This will mean that we cannot contact you in the future about your answers on the questionnaire.
Although we will remove your email address from the final data sets, we may still be able to identify your responses in the data set from the information you provide about yourself (e.g., your age, gender, sport played etc). This means we can delete your responses should you wish to withdraw from the project at any point within the specific timeframe.
All data collected from the project will be stored as encrypted files in password protected folders on password protected computers and backed up on Manchester Met University’s onedrive cloud system.
How will you use my information?
Data will be processed at the country or whole group level. This means that although we may be able to identify your responses in the data set from the information you provide about yourself, we will never report our findings at the person level. Instead, findings will always be reported at the group (country or whole sample) level. This means it will never be possible to identify your responses/scores in any reports or other outputs we will produce associated with this project.
Will my data be sent anywhere else, or shared with other people or organisations?
Your data will not be sent anywhere or shared with other people or organisations outside the researchers from Manchester Met University working on the project.
When will you destroy my information?
Your responses to the online surveys will be retained (on password protected devices/folders) for 5 years at which point it will be archived using MMU electronic archives and the electronic versions of the files deleted from all devices/clouds.
Any files containing your email address will be deleted immediately following the matching of your responses across the three questionnaires unless you have indicated you’d like to receive a summary of the project findings via email. If this is the case, your email address will be deleted once the summary has been sent.
Data Protection Law
Data protection legislation requires that we state the ‘legal basis’ for processing information about you. In the case of research, this is ‘a task in the public interest.’ If we use more sensitive information about you, such as information about your health, religion, or ethnicity (called ‘special category’ information), our basis lies in research in the public interest. Manchester Metropolitan is the Controller for this information and is responsible for looking after your data and using it in line with the requirements of the data protection legislation applicable in the UK.
You have the right to make choices about your information under the data protection legislation, such as the right of access and the right to object, although in some circumstances these rights are not absolute. If you have any questions, or would like to exercise these rights, please contact the researcher or the University Data Protection Officer using the details below.
You can stop being a part of the study at any time, without giving a reason. You can ask us to delete your data at any time, but it might not always be possible. If you ask us to delete information up to one month after completing the third questionnaire (or any time before this), we will make sure this is done. If you ask us to delete data after this point, we might not be able to. If your data is anonymised, we will not be able to withdraw it, because we will not know which data is yours.
What will happen to the results of the research study?
The results of this project will be written up as a report for the International Olympic Committee, which will be published on their website. The results will also be written up for publication in peer-reviewed journal articles and presented at conferences. As stated above, your individual responses to the survey will never be shared in any report, publications or presentations.
Who has reviewed this research project?
This project has been reviewed by the ethics committee at Manchester Metropolitan University and the research review committee at the International Olympic Committee.
Who do I contact if I have concerns about this study or I wish to complain?
Dr Paul Appleton
Lead Researcher
p.appleton@mmu.ac.uk
0161 247 2000
Professor Jamie McPhee
Head of Department of Sport & Exercise Sciences, MMU
j.s.mcphee@mmu.ac.uk
0161 247 5675
Dr Gethin Evans
Faculty of Science and Engineering Head of Research Ethics and Governance, MMU
gethin.evans@mmu.ac.uk
0161 247 1208
Manchester Metropolitan Data Protection Officer dataprotection@mmu.ac.uk
Tel: 0161 247 3331 Legal Services, All Saints Building, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, M15 6BH
UK Information Commissioner’s Office
You have the right to complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you would like to complain about how we process your personal data:
https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/