Sport­ing events of­fer op­por­tu­ni­ties not on­ly to ath­letes to show­case their skills but al­so for re­searchers to gain a first-hand un­der­stand­ing of a myr­i­ad of sport-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties. Like many ca­reers, on-site su­per­vi­sion fa­cil­i­tates ex­pe­ri­en­tial learn­ing. The re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Ni­a­gara 2022 Cana­da Sum­mer Games (Au­gust 6-21), is an ex­am­ple of us­ing a well-or­gan­ised sport­ing event as a teach­ing and re­search site. In the Caribbean, for ex­am­ple, if a stu­dent wish­es to re­search hy­dra­tion prac­tices among ath­letes and non-ath­letes, the Ja­maican ath­let­ic cham­pi­onships will pro­vide a rich source of ath­lete da­ta. Sim­i­lar­ly, if re­searchers are in­ter­est­ed in un­der­stand­ing the fit­ness lev­els of crick­eters, the an­nu­al CPL will be an ide­al re­search site to com­pare the da­ta of both re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers.

Part­ner­ship in in­no­v­a­tive course de­sign

The part­ner­ship among event or­gan­is­ers and uni­ver­si­ties and oth­er re­search in­sti­tu­tions is an in­no­v­a­tive way of de­vel­op­ing sport­ing mu­tu­al­ism be­tween the stake­hold­ers. For ex­am­ple, a sport event plan­ning course will pro­vide in­valu­able in­sights in­to the lo­gis­ti­cal process­es in­volved in stag­ing a suc­cess­ful event, in­clud­ing the im­por­tant role of vol­un­teers.

Nar­ra­tive nuggets from ex­pe­ri­ence and an­tic­i­pat­ed pit­falls will pre­pare stu­dents for up­com­ing events when they are as­signed as vol­un­teer co­or­di­na­tors with some on-task su­per­vi­sion.

At the Cana­da Games, the host city Ni­a­gara, col­lab­o­rat­ed with a large pub­lic uni­ver­si­ty and cor­po­rate spon­sors to or­gan­ise com­pe­ti­tions among sport teams of young ath­letes and Par­a­lympians from 13 provinces and ter­ri­to­ries.

For the first time since its stag­ing, the Games was the site for uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents to com­plete an ex­pe­ri­en­tial course. Fac­ul­ty-led teams cap­i­talised on the event for col­lect­ing da­ta for re­search of im­por­tance to the par­tic­i­pat­ing provinces and ter­ri­to­ries.

The grant-fund­ed aca­d­e­m­ic ac­tiv­i­ties, re­search, and spe­cial projects at the Cana­da Games, re­in­forced the po­si­tion that there re­main un­tapped teach­ing and learn­ing re­sources to be de­rived from ma­jor Caribbean sport com­pe­ti­tions.

The re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Net­ball World Cup Qual­i­fiers Amer­i­c­as in Kingston Ja­maica, the CARIF­TA Games and the fierce­ly com­pet­i­tive five-day ath­let­ic IS­SA/Grace Kennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Cham­pi­onships, of­fer ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ties for re­searchers to learn about dif­fer­ent as­pects of Caribbean sports. As such, it rais­es the ques­tion as to how can uni­ver­si­ties, pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor en­ti­ties part­ner in co-de­sign­ing and im­ple­ment­ing skills-build­ing and cred­it-bear­ing sport cours­es around ma­jor Caribbean sport events?

The Fac­ul­ty of Sport has start­ed us­ing sport com­pe­ti­tions as sites for Caribbean stu­dents to learn high-de­mand sport mar­ket­ing and pub­lic re­la­tions skills. The Fac­ul­ty and the Caribbean Pre­mier League have pi­lot­ed a field-based sport mar­ket­ing and pub­lic re­la­tions train­ing which par­tic­i­pants com­plet­ed dur­ing the 2022 CPL tour­na­ment.

This ex­pe­ri­en­tial learn­ing ap­proach for train­ing as­pir­ing sport mar­keters is be­ing re­fined for ex­pan­sion. De­sign­ing struc­tured ex­pe­ri­en­tial cours­es around mega sport events will pro­duce long-last­ing learn­ing ben­e­fits. Be­ing as­signed to work at a mega sport event as a food ser­vices co­or­di­na­tor, me­dia li­ai­son, ac­cred­i­ta­tion as­sis­tant, da­ta an­a­lyst and so on, as part of a well-de­signed and prop­er­ly man­aged course, pro­motes net­work­ing and in­valu­able work ex­pe­ri­ence

Any­one who has been a mem­ber of an or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee for a ma­jor sport­ing event un­der­stands the mil­i­tary-like co­or­di­na­tion that is need­ed for suc­cess. The plan­ning process for fa­cil­i­ties, op­er­a­tions, sched­ul­ing, trans­porta­tion, se­cu­ri­ty, food ser­vices, amongst oth­ers, must be­gin months be­fore the event. The range of func­tions pri­or to and dur­ing ma­jor sport events make them ide­al or­gan­ic en­vi­ron­ments for sport and non-sport ma­jors to learn im­por­tant sport roles such as dig­i­tal sport mar­ket­ing, sport broad­cast­ing, so­cial me­dia co­or­di­na­tor and more.

Sport re­searchers at one Cana­di­an pub­lic uni­ver­si­ty con­cur that the num­ber, scope and cal­i­bre of games host­ed in the Caribbean an­nu­al­ly, are prospec­tive sites for in­no­v­a­tive and in­te­grat­ed cur­ricu­lum de­vel­op­ment. Games as teach­ing and learn­ing sites can be adapt­ed to teach­ing sport across the re­gion. The in­te­grat­ed prac­ti­cal im­mer­sions by Sport Med­i­cine, Sport and Ex­er­cise Med­i­cine and MSc in Sport stu­dents at the rug­by tour­na­ment host­ed by the Mona Acad­e­my of Sport in Ju­ly, are ex­am­ples of link­ages and per­for­mance-based in­struc­tion that char­ac­terise the sport cur­ricu­lum at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

The Fac­ul­ty of Sport is re­sum­ing host­ing sport events with pro­vi­sions for teach­ing and re­search ac­tiv­i­ties. A core of ex­pe­ri­en­tial learn­ing fac­ul­ty sup­port­ed by a net­work of in­dus­try ex­perts, will pro­vide course con­tent, on­site su­per­vi­sion and men­tor­ship be­fore and dur­ing place­ment at sport events. And like tra­di­tion­al cours­es, the ex­pe­ri­en­tial learn­ing lead must as­sess and pro­vide feed­back dur­ing and at the end of the course, through ob­ser­va­tion, port­fo­lio, re­flec­tion and oth­er as­sess­ment strate­gies.

Ma­jor sport events

as re­search sites

Stu­dent re­searchers and re­cip­i­ent of grants cap­i­talised on the num­ber and di­ver­si­ty of spec­ta­tors at the Cana­da Games. They re­cruit­ed spec­ta­tors to com­plete short sur­veys that yield­ed par­tial da­ta for in­ves­ti­gat­ing per­cep­tion of body im­age and youth nu­tri­tion. Here in the Caribbean, an event such as the an­nu­al Ath­let­ic Cham­pi­onship in Ja­maica at­tracts thou­sands of di­verse pa­trons over five days. Stu­dents and sport re­searchers can re­cruit spec­ta­tors for sur­veys that in­ves­ti­gate a range of top­ics. These top­ics could be on nu­tri­tion­al choic­es of ath­letes and non-ath­letes, spon­sor­ship deals for male and fe­male teams and cli­mate change im­pact on sport.

As sport is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly com­mer­cialised and tech­no­log­i­cal­ly dri­ven, the case for a rec­i­p­ro­cat­ing part­ner­ship be­tween sport or­gan­is­ers and re­search in­sti­tu­tions such as the Fac­ul­ty of Sport in The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies is greater now than ever be­fore. Plan­ning mega sports events should in­clude co-de­sign­ing and co-im­ple­ment­ing ex­pe­ri­en­tial cours­es. This will al­low for the col­lec­tion of im­por­tant pri­ma­ry da­ta that can be used by var­i­ous stake­hold­ers in fu­ture events. Ath­letes, coach­es, event plan­ners and stu­dents who are di­rect­ly in­volved in the ex­pe­ri­en­tial learn­ing, will see the val­ue of study­ing and mak­ing a ca­reer out of sport.

Dr Claudette Coote-Thomp­son is Cur­ricu­lum De­vel­op­ment Spe­cial­ist in the Fac­ul­ty of Sport, Dean’s Of­fice, Mona cam­pus and can be con­tact­ed at claudette.cootethomp­son@uwi­mona.edu.jm