Sport for development and peace: a program evaluation of a sport diplomacy initiative

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the immediate, short-term effectiveness of a specific SDP program, the sport diplomacy initiative, relative to established program goals. Thirty-six groups comprised of 554 individuals participated in the SportsUnited Sport Visitors program over the course of 39 months and were given the opportunity to complete both a pre-test and post-test survey consisting of two essential demographic items (e.g., gender, role as coach or athlete) and seven items measuring core concepts associated with participation. After the data were cleaned, 520 valid respondents remained for analysis. The overall total mean for all seven items combined yields a large effect size of 1.27. Effect sizes indicate that the program is having a strong positive impact on participants as a whole. While all seven items yielded significant gains, there were no significant differences based upon measured demographics.