Reporting Quantitative Methods and Findings: Best Practices Fidelity in the Leisure Science Literature

Abstract

This article identified best practices for quantitative methods and results reporting and then evaluated leisure science articles’ adherence to them. A two-stage stratified sampling method identified 112 articles. A codebook was developed, and 26 universal codes addressing abstract, methods, and results were applied to each article to generate best practices scores (BPS). BPS ranged from 6 to 21 (M = 14.89, SD = 2.95). Articles were more likely to use best practices for abstract, sample selection, recruitment, statistics, and data analysis, and less likely for participant characteristics, instrumentation, and data collection procedures. Comparisons of BPS across journals identified significant differences.