20 | Chapter 1 METHODOLOGY Essential to the methodology that I use in my dissertation, is that I adopt a life course approach and all empirical chapters have a clear longitudinal component or design. I employ a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, using either retrospective or prospective individual life course data containing information regarding experiencing major life events and the sport careers of Dutch individuals. This contributes to the literature, as it allows me to accurately consider the occurrence and timing of major life events and differences and changes in sport participation and study the impact of the events. Data InChapter 2and3, I employ individual life-coursedata fromthe SportersMonitor 2010 (Van den Dool, 2010). These data refer to respondents from the GfK ConsumerJury Panel, which adequately represents the non-institutionalised Dutch population aged 15 years and older. Respondents participated through computer-assisted web interviews (CAWI). One module in the online survey registered important aspects of an individual’s life course, such as the exact occurrence of major life events and a complete history of sport participation using retrospective questioning. Questions referred to personal behaviours that were relatively easy to remember, for example, the age at which a major life event occurred, ages of starting and stopping a sport, participation context and frequency. To prepare the SportersMonitor data for analyses, I constructed person-period files in which every record held information on a respondent for a particular year. For example, if the respondent began to work, moved out the parental home, started to cohabit or got married, and became a parent, as well as if he or she started or stopped a sport in that year. For the investigation of the effects of major life events on the likelihood of starting a sport during the life course (Chapter 2), I created person-year records extending from the 18th year of life up to and including the 65th. Respondents who were younger than 65 years at the time they were interviewed were included in the person-year file from their 18th through their age at that time. As respondents were “at risk” of starting a sport in general and starting sport in a competitive club setting in particular in all the years of the person-year file, the risk set used for the analyses comprised all of the records of the 2707 respondents in the person-
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