Course details
On this course you will be taught by a range of staff with relevant expertise and knowledge appropriate to the content of the unit. This will include senior academic staff, qualified professional practitioners, demonstrators, technicians and research students. You will also benefit from regular guest lectures from industry.
Foundation year
Core units
- Fundamentals of Business & Management: This unit aims to develop your understanding of the business context across industry and sectors globally. You will cover the key issues and challenges facing businesses going forward and the essential role of people in dynamic, resilient and complex organisations. You will explore key functional business areas including marketing, finance, accounting, economics, people management, and organisational behaviour.
- Academic & Professional Practice: You will build your confidence in both academic and professional skills. This unit will cover the academic skills which will be required at degree level study and you’ll practice them throughout the unit with support from key university services including the library and study skills team. There will also be opportunity for you to reflect on and develop your own professional skills through interactions with employers, careers services and online resources.
- Fusion Business Project: You will undertake a business project based on a real issue or problem. The Fundamentals of Business & Management unit will support you in understanding key issues and challenges which could form the basis for your project. Projects will be undertaken in workplaces, community settings or part of research processes related to your chosen field of study. You will be allocated an academic mentor who will support you in developing and undertaking the project.
Year 1
In your first year, you'll look at a variety of subjects will to help you understand the wider sporting context.
Core units
- Beginning Research in Sport & Exercise: This unit will introduce you to the role of research in a variety of sport and exercise contexts. It will cover both quantitative and qualitative research approaches, their associated characteristics, assumptions and basic skills, so that you can evaluate and interpret the value of different research approaches.
- Principles of Sport Management: You will gain a contextual understanding of how core management principles operate in practice within the contemporary sports industry. You will explore how you might apply key concepts within various sport organisations and settings.
- Sport Marketing: Using a strategic approach to marketing, this unit will consider the marketing process in relation to internal and external environments, market research and segmentation, manipulation of the marketing mix and tactics to develop customer loyalty. The theoretical content covered during the unit will be blended with applied examples of marketing practices from around the globe.
- Financial Reporting for Sport: It is important that you have an understanding of the financial reporting structure of organisations and the key parts of that structure. Therefore this unit aims to provide you with an introduction to the techniques involved in the recording and reporting of financial information in a small business, sports club or society.
- Sport Structures & Processes: The unit will analyse the structure and systems of sport and physical activity governance, as well as the operational functions of national sport and physical activity organisations. You will then be enabled to recognise the complexities of providing sport and physical activity opportunities in various contexts.
- Sport, Culture & Society: You will use theories grounded in social science to evaluate and interpret social and cultural issues within the context of sport.
Year 2
In year two, you'll gain more subject specific knowledge and the skills you'll need to work effectively during your industrial work placement in year three, should you opt to take the short or long placement.
Core units:
- Conducting Research in Sport & Exercise: This unit will help prepare you for independent research. It aims to develop a sound understanding of the philosophy and skills that underpin quantitative and qualitative approaches to research enquiry so that you are able to critically evaluate research problems, and apply coherent ethical research designs in a range of sport and exercise-related contexts.
- Consuming Sport: Broadly, the unit will provide a detailed understanding of the contexts in which consumer behaviour occurs (e.g., media, globalisation), the consumer decision-making process, attitude change and development, and the role of self and identity in the consumption process.
- Financial Appraisal for Sport: You will develop the skills and knowledge to facilitate effective financial planning, monitoring and control mechanisms in the sport sector. You will be able to develop short and medium-term strategic decision-making skills that are defined by clear financial criteria.
- Sport Management & Leadership: This unit will enable you to develop an understanding of the behaviour of people in organisations and how they can use management tools to adapt and respond to these demands.
Option units (choose two):
- Issues & Controversies in Sport, Culture & Society: This unit engages you as a critical user and producer of sporting cultures, by critically evaluating key contemporary issues surrounding sport through a variety of academic perspectives. You will communicate your viewpoint with regard to current debates and policies in sport and physical culture.
- Managing Sport for Development: You will develop a holistic understanding of the cases, contexts and situations in which sport and physical activity are used to achieve physical, social, psychological, or community development and health goals.
- Coach & Athlete Welfare: You will develop a critical understanding of contemporary sociology, management and social psychological theories underpinning coaching practice and coach and athlete welfare. It will develop your understanding of the factors that influence and impact upon human interaction in coaching environments and enable you to take responsibility and make informed decisions to contribute to sustainable coaching environments.
- Developing Coaching Practice: You will engage in theoretically-driven practical experiences and discussion of sports coaching practice as well as develop new insights about the complexity of coaching by working with and applying theory to coaching practice for a variety of coaching contexts and populations.
Please note that option units require minimum numbers in order to run and may only be available on a semester by semester basis. They may also change from year to year.
Placement year
The length of the work placement is optional with a minimum of 6-weeks taken as part of the three-year degree or a minimum of 30-weeks taken as part of the four-year degree. The placement can take place in the UK or overseas and gives you the opportunity to turn theory into practice in a business environment.
We have excellent links with sporting organisations, health and fitness clubs and national governing bodies in both the UK and Australia. This includes Sport England, UK Sport, David Lloyd, Fitness First, Holmes Place and the Australian Institute of Sport.
Final year
In your final year, you'll get the opportunity to merge your academic and industrial skills and choose a unit that reflects your interest.
Core units (choose one):
- Dissertation: The dissertation will enable you the opportunity to initiate and carry out an independent and self-managed research project. You will apply your knowledge and understanding of the research process learned so far through the application of techniques of analysis and enquiry within a relevant sport and exercise discipline.
- Research Expedition: You will have the opportunity to perform in-depth research on the needs and responses of individuals completing a UK based endurance expedition. Projects may include laboratory experiments and/or fieldwork exercises. All projects will require you to work independently under the guidance of a supervisor, to perform a review of literature, conduct investigative work and data analysis, develop suitable conclusions and recommendations, and present this in the form of an independent research project.
Option units (choose four):
- Sport & Physical Culture: In this unit you will develop a critical awareness of sport and physical culture in a variety of contexts by bringing together theory and practice in reflexive fieldwork. Advanced application of social theories and concepts will be developed in order to encourage diversity, inclusion and sustainability in sport and physical culture contexts.
- Talent Development in Sport: Talent development is becoming an increasingly important focus for research and practice, as well as being a key part of coaching, coach education, and sport science more widely. You will gain a deep knowledge of the development of talent in sport, and will learn to look beyond headline findings and widely held myths/beliefs, in order to view current practice critically and develop a research-informed, evidence-based understanding.
- Strategy & Leadership for Sport: You will undertake strategic analysis, develop strategic plans and understand the key issues in terms of strategic implementation relevant to public, private and voluntary sector organisations using a broad range of strategic tools, models and theories, and understand the importance of leadership in strategy implementation.
- Applied Sport Marketing: You will develop the ability to undertake marketing analysis, develop strategic marketing plans and understand the key issues in terms of strategic implementation relevant a wide range of international organisations using a broad range of strategic tools, including models and theories.
- Sport Tourism: This unit will develop a systematic understanding of the nature, diversity and features of sport tourism, while developing a detailed knowledge of the changing demands for sport tourism, the supply structures and an examination of its impacts and responses of both sport, event and tourism providers.
- Entrepreneurship & Innovation in Sport Management: This unit will address the importance of enterprise, and how entrepreneurship is a key driver in the sports industry, in order to create successful sport enterprises and business developments. You will have the opportunity to investigate and experience the processes involved in creativity, alongside the generation, assessment and pitching of entrepreneurial ideas.
- Sport Business Analytics: In this unit we will apply sport management theories to real-world problems that can be addressed and/or better understood through the collation of various forms of data from a range of digital environments.
- Fusion Learning Project: This unit engages industry partners in student learning, developing students as researchers, and providing them with a platform to influence real-world practice. You will work on a business-based problem on behalf of a client that requires you to reflect on the challenges facing society. You will develop graduate attributes and employability skills in areas such as intellectual curiosity, collaboration and teamwork, and societal contribution.
- Managing Sport Events for Sustainable Development: On this unit you will consider a range of issues relating to the planning, development, implementation, evaluation, and legacies of successful sport events that aim to address the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and other contemporary societal challenges.
Please note that option units require minimum numbers in order to run and may only be available on a semester by semester basis. They may also change from year to year.
