OOIR: Observatory of International Research

Papers

(The median citation count of Qualitative Research in Sport Exercise and Health is 3. The table below lists those papers that are above that threshold based on CrossRef citation counts [max. 250 papers]. The publications cover those that have been published in the past four years, i.e., from 2022-01-01 to 2026-01-01.)

Article	Citations
Moving from barriers to collaborative action: supporting social change in community sport through action research with club leaders	197
Co-producing a physical activity intervention with and for people with severe mental ill health – the spaces story	38
Towards a sportive agoraphobia of professional athletes	28
“ We just want to get fit too ”: belonging and inclusion in the gym	25
‘At least you got to see people when you went out for a walk’: older adults’ lived, embodied experiences during COVID-19 times in the United Kingdom	25
Am I becoming better? A life-long and life-wide analysis of sport coaches’ ecological realities and (mal)adaptation in the workplace	22
“Women shouldn’t play rugby” – the gendered and embodied experiences of women players in rugby union	21
Shifting power relations in disability sport and social activism research: an emancipatory approach	17
‘The man in the middle’: mixed martial arts referees and the production and management of socially desirable risk	17
One of these is not like the other: The retrospective experiences of girl athletes playing on boys’ sports teams during adolescence	17
Shaping (queer) orientations: affective experiences and professional changes of a transgender and intersex teacher in physical education	17
“What does skateboarding mean to you?” An exploratory study of Brazilian skateboarders’ developmental experiences	17
Feeling good, sensory engagements, and time out: embodied pleasures of running	15
‘Cripping’ care in disability sport: an autoethnographic study of a highly impaired high-performance athlete	15
Correction	15
A letter to my younger self: using a novel written data collection method to understand the experiences of athletes in Chronic Pain	14
Making moves: involved fathers experiences of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside family walking program	14
‘It’s easier to just keep going’: elaborating on a narrative of forward momentum in sport	14
Being there in sport, exercise and health ethnography: reflections from the bouldering apprentice	13
Exploring the leisure time physical activity (LTPA) experiences of women with a physical disability in India	12
Infusing ‘post’ thinking in qualitative training using material-performative pedagogies	12
Teachers’ perceptions of barriers and facilitators of the school environment for physical activity in schoolchildren: a qualitative study	12
Love, sacrifice, and rebirth: exploring the embodied narratives of retired women ballet dancers using life history interviews and body mapping	11
Perceptions and experiences of exercise participation among persons with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: A qualitative study	11
Passing the emotional baton: the roles emotion expressions play amongst gymnasts during competition	11

“2032 is a dream for us”: exploring amputee football players’ understanding of classification in para-sport and its application to amputee football	11
Territorial identification in crisis: fan identity negotiation following club dissolution in Chinese football	10
A Qualitative Investigation of Teachers’ Experiences of Life Skills Development in Physical Education	10
Reaching out: help-seeking among professional male ice hockey athletes	10
Understanding workplace collaboration in professional rugby coaching: a dramaturgical analysis	9
Understanding the career experiences and reflections of Special Olympics Canada’s National Team Program coaches	9
Drawing strength: evaluating the Tidda Talk programme through comparative body mapping with young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women	9
Re-signifying HIV through exercise: from death sentence stigma to healthy self-perception	9
Co-produced research that bridges the ‘Knowledge Gap’ to support physical activity participation in disabled children and young people with limb difference	9
Hybrid choreographic femininities: DanceSport, physical culture, and performative corporeality in contemporary China	8
A process map of flourishing between the coach and athlete in Canadian university sport	8
“Elite but not elitist”: Negotiating race, place, class, and culture in public physical activity spaces	8
Planning for the development of strength and conditioning coaches’ psychosocial competencies	8
(Re)claiming subversive spaces on TikTok: the complexities of body activisms within physical activity cultures	7
“My biggest learning curve:” an interpretive phenomenological analysis of coaches’ experiences of working with athletes who experience a menstrual cycle	7
Gay men, well-being, and sport participation: A phenomenological analysis	7
Constructions of athlete mental health post-retirement: a discursive analysis of stigmatising and legitimising versions of transition distress in the Australian broadcast media	7
Equipping service providers: how social learning spaces enhance trauma- and violence-informed physical activity practices	6
“Is Everybody Comfortable?”#xd; Thinking Through Co-design Approaches to Better Support Girls’ Physical Activity in Schools	6
Building bridges: a Qualitative exploration of the athlete – guide partnership in high-performance parasport	6
You wouldn’t let your phone run out of battery: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of male professional football coaches’ well-being	6
Grow through what you go through: a multiple-case study of competitive bodybuilders’ experiences of learning to manage the demands of their engagement in the sport	6
Creating space for meaningful physical activity at home: women’s stories of social interaction, micro-adventure, and the joy of feeling strong	5
Pumping iron for strength and power: prisoners’ perceptions of a stable body	5
An exploration of the perceptions and experiences of professional ballet dancers using a wellness monitoring application	5
Moral, health, and aesthetic risks: performance-enhancing drug use and the culture of silence in the UK strongwoman community	5
Multi-stakeholder perspectives on co-production: Five key recommendations following the Liverpool Co-PARS project	5
Running blind: the sensory practices of visually impaired runners	5
Good athlete, bad patient? Navigating life with chronic illness in U.S. collegiate sport	5
The stigma and challenges faced by retired professional male rugby players	5
Kicking crime into touch? A critical ethnography of rugby union, masculinity, and the limits of positive youth development in youth justice	5
Athletes with intellectual impairments and their support personnel’s experience of anti-doping	5
Choose your own story: creative non-fiction about athletes attempting to qualify for the Olympics	5
Repairing relationship conflict in community sport work: “Offender” perspectives	5
A case study of alcohol use among male university rugby players	5
Recovering with grace: a grounded theory of female artistic sport athletes’ experiences with sport-related concussion	5
Women moving forward in pictures: using digital photographs to explore postpartum women’s physical activity experiences	4
A sport research teams’ reflections on conducting emotionally demanding research with the bereaved	4
Landscape of practice: a participatory approach to creating a trauma- and violence-informed physical activity social learning space	4
‘You made us feel at home’: towards Indigenous feminist methodologies with young wāhine in sport and exercise	4
Motherhood and competitive coaching: six stories of generational differences in persisting and resisting gender inequities in sport	4
Paying attention to tension: studying the perspectives of health care workers, sports club volunteers, and people with type 2 diabetes, engaged in public-civil physical activity collaboration	4
‘The agenda is to have fun’: exploring experiences of guided running in visually impaired and guide runners	4
‘I like to run to feel’: embodiment and wearable mobile tracking devices in distance running	4
Understanding coaches’ perspectives on building trust in sport: a narrative inquiry approach	4
What helps cardiac patients exercise after treatment, and when? Understanding physical activity and exercise participation following exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation	4
Combining crystallisation and creative non-fiction to develop new insights on the politically astute use of humour in sports coaching	3
Poetic confessions of a neophyte qualitative researcher undertaking emotionally demanding research in sport	3
All roads lead to Rome? Talent narratives of elite athletes, musicians, and mathematicians	3
Whiteness, Canadian university athletic administration, and anti-racism leadership: ‘A bunch of white haired, white dudes in the back rooms’	3

Inescapable tensions: performance and/or psychological well-being in Olympic and Paralympic athletes during sport disruption	3
The weight of stigma: Charlie and the fragility of bodies in the age of lightness	3
“Everyone does it but no one really wants to talk about it”: roles and meanings of bodily secretions in the confines of distance running groups	3
Gatekeeping and ableism in physical education provision for disabled children: perspectives and practices	3
The fitness boom and the pursuit of body ideals: domesticating the use of smartwatches in Ghanaian fitness spaces	3
“More than just a walk in the park”: A multi-stakeholder qualitative exploration of community-based walking sport programmes for middle-aged and older adults	3
Experiences of people with prediabetes in a self-compassion and physical activity intervention: a qualitative study using participatory Theme Elicitation	3
Concussion in professional wrestling: agency, structure and cultural change	3
Developing 'whole people': a case-study of a sports-friendly school	3
Uncertainty, loss, ambivalence, and connection: conversations with older adults about social isolation during COVID -19 physical activity programme closures	3