TWENTY YEARS OF THE FACTA UNIVERSITATIS, SERIES PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND SPORT: THE HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGY IN SPORT AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION

The aim of this paper was to use the analysis of all the articles published in the journal Facta Universitatis – series: Physical Education and Sport since it was first published  in 1994, up to 2013 to gain insight into the research methodology used in sport and physical education. For the purpose of this analysis, the authors classified the articles based on various criteria which are considered good methodological indicators (type of article, research design, field of study, characteristics of the sample of participants, measuring instruments, data processing methods). By monitoring the individual methodological characteristics of the research done in sport and physical education, we were able to explain the development of research methodology in this field, as well as the trends of research methodology both in theory and practice, including whether there is a possible imbalance between the number of published articles in various fields of study, what the relationship between the longitudinal and transversal studies is and so on. By gaining insight into the improvements made in the applied testing procedures, study design, choice of participants and methods of statistical data processing in the articles published in the journal Facta Universitatis - series: Physical Education and Sport, we can conclude that our science over the past twenty years has achieved a significant improvement in terms of research methodology