Examine Theory Of Change & Realist Theory For Evaluation Of Sports Development Program Assignment Sample

Introduction of Change & Realist Theory For Evaluation Of Sports Development Program Assignment

Sports development programs are conducted for enhancing the talent and skill of the athletes or players. This provides an effective process for developing skill or talent, which includes completion among the players of the same field. This provides encouragement to the players for improving their skills for competing with their competitors. Various theories are implemented for effective development in sports such as the Theory of Change and relist theory. These theories provide a different perspective on the development of sports, which directly or indirectly focus on the development of sports. These theories have different approaches to the sports process, which include a change in the program that includes improving the training process and maintaining effective development in the conduction of various sports programs. The weakness and strengths are mention and discussed in a proper manner to have a proper understanding of these theories. The theories need to be implemented taking the weakness in concern for proper development of sports programs. The Australian government has implemented various improvement programs by introducing various sports events in the coming years. The Australian government has also invested a large amount of budget for inspiring the athletes and payers. This study helps in critically analysing the weakness and strengths of theories and develops better sports development programs.

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Critical examination of the theory of change

“A theory of change is a method that explains how a given intervention, or set of interventions, is expected to lead to a specific development change, drawing on a causal analysis based on the available evidence” (Unsdg.un.org, 2022). This provides an effective drawback of the particular field and provides the strength of the particular field. This theory provides a change that needs to be implemented for the development of a particular field. Sport is a field that also needs a theory of change for proper development and enhances the well-being of players or athletes. It focuses on preventing the main motive of sports and maintains the objective of the sports development programs that include improvement in players' skills by proper training. It follows sustainable practices for developing a well-managed sports development program.

It maintains the “Sport for Development and Peace” (SDP) sector by maintaining peace sports. The theory of change maintains the United Nations' development goals by “Achieving gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls”. It also maintains sustainability in the environment, which includes the use of sustainably managed forests, and terrestrial ecosystems, reversing land degradation, halting biodiversity loss and combating desertification. The change theory ensures that sports must not harm the sustainability of the ocean, which includes swimming practices with the use of water.  This theory also developed sustainability in taking “urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”. This theory also builds a special attachment for cities and humans by making “cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. The Theory of change helps in maintaining an effective balance of sustainability and sports development programs. 

Weakness of the theory of change 

According to Forsyth (2018), the theory of change gives an over-complicated, oversimplified process that provides a negative impact on a sports program. It suggests inappropriate suggestions for the development or connection of effective sports development programs. The connection is wrongly developed which creates a misconception among the higher authorities and this leads to the destruction of programs, which leads to improper handling of the project. The funders do not recognise the values. This cast a negative impact on sports programs as the funders are the main fundraiser for the organisation of the sports program. Funders must have a positive impact on the development of sports programs. However, according to Meyfroidt et al. (2018), the change provides wrong assumptions, which seem to have a loss of energy without any outcome. The sports program needs proper forecasting to provide proper guidance and develop an effective performance of athletes and players, the funders or the fund provider must get impressed for receiving a proper budget for the development of the sports program. Finance and budget are the main aspects of support for the development of structure and proper nutrition of athletes. The expenditure in marinating the fitness level is much and to maintain the expenditure, external support is needed for fulfilling the needs of players or athletes. 

Advantages of the theory of change 

According to Weiss (2018), the theory of change helps in better understanding sports needs and requirements for the future of athletes and players. It provides a better understanding of nutrient intake as well as diet maintenance needs for athletes. It provides a straightforward process for a particular change in the health process. One of the most important portions is that it provides a suitable structure that fits every situation. This gives proper flexibility for building a well-structured format for the sports development methods. This also fits in pre-developed programs and maintains the shape of the program structure. Theory of change helps in developing a proper structure and it also questions the NGOs and many leading institutes for the rule they have made and implemented for the betterment of athletes and players. It also raises questions to higher authorities in the assumption they are making regarding the development of sports professionals. This is because it provides an effective suggestion after detailed analysis. The change theory has a good analysis process that focuses on the drawbacks of the particular field (sports development programs). This has influenced to development of better management in various countries regarding sports programs.

Australia has also developed various changes regarding sports programs and implemented “Assistance to elite athletes, junior community programs and the development of skilled expertise in the region”. However, according to Ray (2019), realist theory helps in developing great chances for success as it improves the management process by fulfilling the drawbacks of sports development programs. Success has can become easy if change theory is implemented for the development programs. It maintains the worse situation and leads to an intermediary position by improving the system to the highest extent. Theory of change helps in analysing the development process of athletes and suggests an effective process for the development of athletes such as providing proper nutrition and water intake after a specific interval of time. A proper diet and hydration keep the athletes energetic and repair them for fighting in events.  Maintaining the fitness level of athletes encourages the athletes to compete in the events. For competing in special events proper training, as well as fitness, must be maintained. Theory of change helps in developing as well as improving the sports management process in terms of sports development programs. 

Critical examination of realist theory

According to Bonell et al. (2020), realist theory is implementing a better arrangement for students to influence sports in academics. This helps in reducing the SARS-CoV-2 transmission in recent generations for building a well immune for fighting against the virus. This helps in developing effective mental and physical development. “Realists suggest that interventions ‘work’ by providing resources which actors in settings take up and use; triggering mechanisms which may be depending on the context, generate the intended outcomes”. This also helps in providing an effective process for the improvement of the system as well as a person's health and expertise regarding the skill of performing. The realist may fail to provide outcomes because of not proper use of resources. It focuses on the financial and “capital that has undergone a process of fracturing, which requires a re-assessment of longstanding and consensual accounts of traditional-to-modern sporting activity”.  However, according to Colombo, Elkin & Hartmann (2021), realist theory emphasises the power of sport in a particular region and also helps in casting the future ruling by the officials.

It encourages the philosophies for the development of rules in particular regions and provides an effective process to be implemented for improving the sports process. It makes rules for cheating or various unfair rules for development and unfair practices. It makes rules for every type, of sport, which includes pick-up games to professional sports. It makes rules for players, officials, coaches and fans. These are the key elements in the game so that sports are conducted in a well-developed manner. It also supports sustainability property and encourages philosophers to enhance effective processes for the development and maintaining the social responsibility for sustainability. Sustainable practices include inhaling fresh air using effective water consumption for different processes. Sustainable development includes the best practising of legal policies ordered by the government. The conceptualization of legacy delivery has largely relied on positive, utopian legacy rhetoric (Byers, Hayday, & Pappous, 2020). Realist theory helps in conducting an effective process or legal rules for the development of sports programs. 

Weakness of realism theory

According to Gilmore et al. (2019), “Realist theory” mainly emphasizes increasing community involvement through enhancing the distribution of power internationally but there is a lack of conceptualized useful factors regarding authorities and partition in the sports development process. This theory is unable to deliver an appropriate logic regarding policies and guidelines that is responsible for creating knowledge and conceptualizing related issues in sports development practice. According to the “ sports development column”, sports people have to follow a proper learning process for influencing knowledge based on what is not supposed by “Realist theory”.

Realism appreciates the possibility of major judgments concerning international policies that leads to achieving an outcome through changing mechanisms but it affects critical realism in sports development practice. “Realist theory” is concerned with exploring the supreme value of different practices concerning different consequences related to these key areas. In this aspect, developing an alternative regarding existing consequences regarding sports development with community involvement practice affects morality and stability based on judgements that can be recognised as a negative aspect of “Realist theory”. This theory focuses on a long-term theoretical tradition in changing and development process that helps to create an effective approach for development practice. However, following a long theoretical tradition in sports development practice is a facade of criticism due to representing critical, liberal, and postmodern perspectives by theorists without concerning status. Realism theory creates a conflict between two competitors and leads to unending competition among the competitors.  

Advantages of realism theory

According to Burchill et al. 2022), realist theory focuses on the events that exist in the world according to its own right. It focuses on activities related to language mange4s hygiene and improves the mental as well as physical health of the players or athletes. It improves social activities leisure activities, vocational activities and activities related to race presentation activities. It helps in providing an effective preference for the practical life of the materials world and gets connected for better experiences. It also provides a better experience for the training senses that will help in developing effective skills. A better training process has an effective role performance during the events. It also develops better mental as well as physical health that provides a better judging process and provides better intelligence for the effective performance of an athlete. This process helps in marinating the gradual development of players and athletes.

It also develops a great process for skill development for athletes, which includes self-awareness by providing a space to the athletes and players for their personal analysis and self-development. Realist theory is implemented in the coaching process and gives an effective way of coaching athletes and players by following the rule so that athletes perform well and improve gradually. The coaching process uses different techniques for providing an effective learning process. 

The realistic theory follows a flexible model that helps to demonstrate different factors and traditional theoretical perspectives in the evaluation of sport development practice that includes analysis of outcome, mechanism and context. Concerning these factors, it can be stated that it plays a significant role in the sports development process through conducting change regarding situation and type of judgements.  Flexibility in changing models and policies in the sports development process plays a significant role in encouraging further development practice with the effective participation of practitioners. 

Personal sports development program, and critically discuss about utilization of theory of change

Sport development practice is defined as a promotional activity for increasing community involvement that helps to be a success in this sport development process with effective participation and developing networking with the involvement of a wide range of service providers, community groups as well as facility operators. As argued by Whitley et al. (2019), national governing bodies and local; authority is responsible for encouraging the effectiveness of sport development practice through participating in sports activity as a voluntary sponsor. The development program is associated with encouraging individual as well as team effectiveness to explore remarkable team performance in the field. Sport development practice involves three key aspects effective participation, enhancing inclusivity, and progressing sport capability with a "sports development continuum". Increasing participation in sports is important for encouraging personal efficiency and expertise through developing a skill set that includes learning and practising steps of sport development practice. Moreover, it helps to develop a coaching relationship that is beneficial for participation.

 According to argumentive themes regarding well-being in the "theory of change" indicate physical activities and effective involvement in sports help to encourage personal capability through improving health and well-being. Physical activity plays a vital role in improving mental health that is important for achieving success in "sports development practice" with perseverance.  Theory of change suggested that peoples enable to encourage personal effectiveness and capability by involving in sports that are associated with building coaching relationships. Apart from that, it can be stated that sports development practice is associated with increased participation. Increasing inclusiveness is another principle of developing the sport capability of a sportsperson that suggest avoiding distraction and showing enthusiasm and interest to learn effectively (Sportanddev.org, 2022).  Theory of change in sports development practice provides a significant diagram of hypotheses that suggest maintaining distance between sports and crime. Moreover, it helps to prove proper guidance worthy of effective individual development practice through developing themes namely, Distraction, Individual development, well-being and community and social development. In this aspect, people have to avoid distraction during taking part in sports that will contribute to encouraging involvement and accomplishing a noticeable sports competition on the field.

Avoiding distraction during participation in sports is important for avoiding anti-social behaviour and giving the best practice in sports competitions. As opined by Bigby et al. (2018), following "sports development continuum" in sport development practice is associated with a pyramid that includes the foundation stage, performance stage, participation stage and excellence stage. Foundation stage is primary level in learning and development practice that deliver adequate information about guidelines and specification regarding sport and its boundary.  As cited by Debognies et al. (2022), "theory of change" provides significant information regarding changing tactics in sports development practice concerning encouraging involvement and minimising distraction that can contribute to enhancing the inclusiveness of practitioners. In this aspect, using "Theory of change" in sports development practice play a  crucial role as a guide through influencing the learning and development process as well as coaching repetition that is important to stimulating performance and achieving success in sports practice. Personal development practice with effective knowledge regarding guidelines of sports is important for improving the outcome of coaching. Participation strategy includes the "community Tops program" that is conducted through involvement in multi-skill activities.

The participation stage is interesting with the performance stage of spots development practice that helps to represent quality of coaching and participation. The excellence stage helps to demonstrate expertise in a particular field of sports that can be developed through proper following of the "sports development continuum" (Learnzone.loucoll.ac.uk, 2021). Theory of Change is concerned with providing much-needed guidance regarding requirements that are helpful for launching alongside training programmes and support for sports members. Providing proper guidance helps to ensure success in individual sports development practice through increasing understanding capability as well as the effectiveness of members.  Apart from that, it can be stated that proper guidance and a systematic development process suggested by the "Theory of change" indicate the possibility of success in Personal "sports development practice". Appling "theory of change" is beneficial for personal "sports development practice" because it helps to provide proper gradient with proper instruction of each stage through delivering key themes. 

Conclusion

A preview of this study helps to conclude that sports development practice is associated with following a systematic way of the "sports development continuum" by contributing to increasing participation and inclusiveness in sports and avoiding distraction. "Theory of change" suggests increasing participation in sports due to increasing personal capability and expertise because it is beneficial for mental and physical health as well as improves behaviour. Improving behaviour due to effective involvement in sports helps to encourage personal capability considering skill-set and knowledgebase that helps to become experts in significant fields that are recommended by the “theory of change" through exploring well-being and individual development themes.   A study regarding "theory of change" in sports development practice signifies that active participation in sports development practice helps to make a behavioural change of partition through building coaching relationships. 

“Realist evaluation approach" of "sports development program" suggested improving knowledge and ability through training and development practice that is associated with adequate clarification regarding the program and it’s every stage. The theoretical perspective of "realistic evaluation practice" is associated with rudiments of "context, mechanisms and outcome" of sport development practice that is concerning the influence of social and community involvement through adopting different changes.  Generative causation instructed by “realist theory" is associated with the explanation of tasks and ways to change to achieve decided outcomes. Ways of change in sports development practice mechanisms play a significant role in elaborating mechanisms to acknowledge circumstances.  The development process with "realist theory and framework" signifies the importance of producing knowledge regarding worthy elements in sports as well as acknowledgements for circumstances.  Therefore, using a theory of change is beneficial for flooring systematic way in sports development practice and achieving desired goals through following the foundation, participation, performance and excellence stages. Moreover, using the "sports development column" is important to enhancing personal expertise and becoming the best performer with notable performance and participation concerning “personal sport development practice". 

Reference list

Books

Debognies, P., Schaillée, H., Haudenhuyse, R. and Theeboom, M., (2022). Personal development of disadvantaged youth through community sports: A theory-driven analysis of relational strategies. In The Potential of Community Sport for Social Inclusion (pp. 15-36). Routledge.

Journals

Bigby, C., Anderson, S. and Cameron, N., (2018). Identifying conceptualizations and theories of change embedded in interventions to facilitate community participation for people with intellectual disability: A scoping review. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 31(2), pp.165-180. Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from: https://doi.org/10.1111/jar.12390

Bonell, C., Melendez-Torres, G. J., Viner, R. M., Rogers, M. B., Whitworth, M., Rutter, H., ... & Patton, G. (2020). An evidence-based theory of change for reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission in reopened schools. Health & place, 64, 102398. Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2020.102398

Burchill, S., Linklater, A., Donnelly, J., Nardin, T., Paterson, M., Reus-Smit, C., ... & Sajed, A. (2022). Theories of international relations. Bloomsbury Publishing. Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from:https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/5454290/mod_resource/content/1/Theories-of-IR_Scott%20Burchill.pdf

Byers, T., Hayday, E., & Pappous, A. S. (2020). A new conceptualization of mega sports event legacy delivery: Wicked problems and critical realist solution. Sport Management Review, 23(2), 171-182 Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2019.04.001

Colombo, M., Elkin, L., & Hartmann, S. (2021). Being realist about Bayes, and the predictive processing theory of mind. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from:http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/14767/7/BayesCogSci_14.pdf

Forsyth, T. (2018). Is resilience to climate change socially inclusive? Investigating theories of change processes in Myanmar. World Development, 111, 13-26. Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from:http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/88584/1/Forsyth_Resilience%20to%20Climate%20Change_Accepted.pdf

Gilmore, B., McAuliffe, E., Power, J., & Vallières, F. (2019). Data analysis and synthesis within a realist evaluation: toward more transparent methodological approaches. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1609406919859754. Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from:https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1609406919859754

Meyfroidt, P., Chowdhury, R. R., de Bremond, A., Ellis, E. C., Erb, K. H., Filatova, T., ... & Verburg, P. H. (2018). Middle-range theories of land system change. Global environmental change, 53, 52-67. Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/am/pii/S0959378018302280

Ray, V. (2019). A theory of racialized organizations. American Sociological Review, 84(1), 26-53 Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from:https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0003122418822335

Weiss, C. H. (2018). Theory-based evaluation: theories of change for poverty reduction programs. In Evaluation and poverty reduction (pp. 103-112). Routledge. Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from:https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/15197/multi_page.pdf?sequence=1#page=123

Whitley, M.A., Massey, W.V., Camiré, M., Blom, L.C., Chawansky, M., Forde, S., Boutet, M., Borbee, A. and Darnell, S.C., (2019). A systematic review of sport for development interventions across six global cities. Sport Management Review, 22(2), pp.181-193. Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2018.06.013

Websites

Learnzone.loucoll.ac.uk (2021), The sports development continuum , Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from: https://learnzone.loucoll.ac.uk/sportres/CourseGenie/Sport/2009-10/AASENatCert/NC05_SportsDevelopment/NC_SportsDevelopment_01Mod/NC_SportsDevelopment_01Mod_02.htm

Sportanddev.org (2022), Our Theory of Change:, Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from: https://www.sportanddev.org/sites/default/files/downloads/theory_of_change_0.pdf

Unsdg.un.org, (2022). THEORY OF CHANGE Retrieved on: 15.12.2022, from:https://unsdg.un.org/sites/default/files/UNDG-UNDAF-Companion-Pieces-7-Theory-of-Change.pdf