Dane-Staples Earns Journal’s Paper of the Year Honor

Dr. Emily Dane-Staples, associate professor in the Sport Management Department, was recently awarded Sport Management Education Journal’s Best Paper Award for 2019.

A peer-reviewed publication of the North American Society for Sport Management, the journal promotes pedagogy, coursework, curricula, and teaching of sport management topics. The journal includes refereed research articles, pedagogical innovations, and book reviews.

The award recognizes the best articles published in the journal for the 2019 calendar year. In its announcement of the awards, the editorial board noted that the distinction is “significant recognition of scholarship and commitment to the development of the body of knowledge in sport management education and pedagogy.”

Dane-Staples’ paper, “Assessing a Two-Pronged Approach to Active Learning in Sport Sociology Classrooms,” explores impacts of both active-learning pedagogy and physical space on student engagement and learning.

The study, which assessed students in two courses, Sport and Society and Gender and Sport, evaluated impacts of an unchanged physical space versus a manipulated physical space and active-learning tasks of varying complexity. Dane-Staples found that while student perceptions of engagement did not change when comparing consistent and changing space variations, different levels of task complexity led to significant differences in perceptions of engagement and learning.

“I was very surprised and humbled by the honor. I believe research focused on student learning should be at the forefront of our work, and I am proud to have this study be recognized,” said Dane-Staples. “Given these times, thinking about what makes active learning work and how physical space can influence learning is extremely important.”

The selection committee was comprised of the editorial board members from institutions including Towson University, University of Southern Mississippi, Belmont University, University of New Mexico, and Texas A&M Corpus Christi.