Curious about studying Sport & Exercise - BSc (Hons)at Abertay University? We've gathered all the key details—entry requirements, modules, fees, and more. Hear from real students by checking out reviews, or take the next step by booking an open day to explore it for yourself.
Bachelor of Science (with Honours) - BSc (Hons)
Abertay University
Full Time
Sep 2026
4 Year
This degree is wide-ranging, from scientific support, coaching and service provision to duty of care and community sports development. You'll have practical sessions in our bespoke physiology and biomechanics laboratories. Plus you'll explore areas like social policy with sports coaching and development. You'll learn by blending academic study alongside relevant industry experience, helping you to tailor your degree as your interests develop.
Built-in work placementsBuilt-in work placements help you learn how to apply your knowledge to real-life situations. This includes volunteering with the Active Schools programme, and you'll have the option to work towards National Governing Body or industry qualifications.
A practical and wide-ranging degreeThere are a range of option modules with few compulsory ones in years 3 and 4, meaning that you can make this your own individualised degree programme within sport and exercise. If you want to study a wide-ranging, practical and flexible sport degree, then this is for you. This course is flexible, and part of a portfolio of five courses covering different specialisms in sport. For the first two years, everyone takes Sport and Exercise as a foundation. Then you specialise in years three and four. Whatever you choose to do career-wise, your studies are designed to dovetail neatly into your future employment plans. This degree is part of a larger portfolio of five courses covering different specialisms in sport. Our two-year foundation approach means you can keep your options open until you’ve learnt more about what really interests you. This means as you study you’ll learn what you want to focus on, and your degree will suit your own interests and career aspirations. If you want to work in this industry or continue your studies but haven’t worked out exactly what you want to do, this is a great way to start. Having gained two years of knowledge and discovered your own specialist area, in year three you choose from one of these pathways: * Continue studying BSc (Hons) Sport and Exercise * BSc (Hons) Sport and Exercise Science * BSc (Hons) Sports Development and Coaching * BSc (Hons) Strength and Conditioning * BSc (Hons) Physical Activity and Health
Starting university is a big step, and every student arrives with different strengths and challenges. This module helps you reflect on your skills, identify areas for development and plan how to succeed academically and personally. Using the Abertay Discovery Tool, you'll review key areas such as study skills, careers and employability, digital confidence and wellbeing. You'll then create a personal action plan and choose further MySuccess modules to support your growth throughout your time at Abertay. Indicative Content - What Does a Successful Student Look Like? Reflect on your motivations, values and passions. Explore what makes a successful student, learn from different examples of success, and consider how stepping outside your comfort zone can help you grow. - Abertay Discovery Tool: Complete the Abertay Discovery Tool to identify your strengths and areas for development across five themes: studying at university, academic skills, digital skills, careers and employability, and wellbeing. - Fundamentals of University: Learn how university study works - from understanding modules and assessments to interpreting assignment briefs and using feedback to improve. - Expectations of University and You: Explore what's expected of you as a student, including the code of conduct, academic integrity, and independent learning. Understand blended learning and how the Abertay Attributes link to your development. - Successful Student Behaviours: Develop habits that support success: managing time, avoiding procrastination, preparing effectively for classes, taking good notes and building a growth mindset. Discover opportunities to get involved at Abertay and beyond.
Please note: ABE111: Numbers for Everyday Life will only be assigned as a core module if you do not have a minimum of a National 5 Maths qualification at grade C or an acceptable equivalent. This module helps you strengthen core numeracy skills, including percentages, decimals, fractions, appreciation, depreciation and rounding. Through problem-solving and reasoning, you’ll learn to analyse everyday situations and make logical, well-informed decisions. You’ll also gain a foundation in statistics—covering mean, median, mode and standard deviation—and develop financial skills such as budgeting, managing income and expenses, understanding interest rates, and making choices about saving and borrowing. By applying these skills to real-life contexts, you’ll build confidence in using numbers to solve problems, manage your finances, and support decision-making in both study and work. Indicative Content - Numerical Skills: Develop your confidence with key number skills, including percentages, decimals, fractions, appreciation, depreciation and rounding. - Problem Solving and Reasoning: Practice using maths to tackle everyday situations. Learn how to spot problems, rearrange equations, make logical connections and reach effective decisions. - Fundamentals of Statistics: Get to grips with the basics of statistics. Learn how to calculate and use mean, median, mode and standard deviation to interpret and compare data. - Financial Skills: Build practical financial know-how. Explore budgeting, managing income and expenses, understanding interest rates, and making smart decisions about saving and borrowing. Apply these skills directly to real-life situations.
This module introduces you to social issues in sport and exercise contexts. Indicative Content - Recognising and defining the disciplines within social science: You'll explore the major disciplines within social science in the context of sport and exercise (e.g., sociology of sport, sport development, sport history) - Discrimination in sport: You'll explore sources of discrimination in sport and exercise contexts (e.g., gender, class, ethnicity, LGBTI). - Sport Political Ideology: You'll learn how political systems impact upon and use sport. - Ethics and sport: You'll learn about moral and ethical issues in sport and exercise. This contexts provide a unique environment for moral and ethical issues. - Qualitative methodologies: You'll be introduced to qualitative research and how this type of research has developed our understanding of sport and exercise.
In this module, you’ll explore how the body moves by studying the skeleton, muscles and the basic principles of biomechanics. You’ll learn how anatomy and movement relate to sport, exercise, physical activity and health, helping you understand how the body performs — and how to improve or protect it. Indicative Content - Anatomy: The structure and function of healthy bones, joints, tendons and ligaments. Identify major muscle groups and the relationship between muscles (i.e. agonist, antagonist, synergist and fixator). - Kinesiology: The normal patterns of movements available at peripheral joints within healthy individuals. Content will include axes of rotation and lever systems within the human body. - Kinematics: Basic linear biomechanical principles regarding the description of motion including, vectors, displacement, velocity and acceleration and the ability to accurately calculate these. - Kinetics: Newton’s laws of motion, forces, movement of mass, momentum and impulse and the moment of inertia. - Analysis of human movement: Biomechanical measures of human movement, including stability and balance within a healthy population. Additionally methods of accurate recording using 2D motion analysis.
Explore what it means to be a leader in sport and physical activity. You’ll learn about the key theories, principles and skills that underpin effective leadership — from communication and motivation to planning and reflection. You’ll also get hands-on experience leading activities, giving you the chance to apply what you’ve learned in real settings and develop your own leadership style. Indicative content - Role: Discuss the concept of leadership in sport and physical activity, and how we define these roles. Look at the various contexts in which they operate and consider the issues of role ambiguity and role conflict. - Approach: Consider the how the attitude held by an individual acts as the guiding principle for the training and development of their participants. Identify your own leadership philosophy/style and the strengths/weaknesses of this. - Planning Training Sessions: Learn the key stages in the planning of a sport/exercise sessions. Focus on the importance of systematic, integrated and serial sessions and the underpinning need to consider the context and participants - Practical instruction: Engage in leading sessions as both a coach/instructor and as a participant. Work in a range of contexts and attempt to overcome different limitations within these contexts. - Evaluation: Identify the success/failure of training sessions, the ongoing implications of this, and the limitations of the evaluation process itself.
In this module, you’ll be introduced to the physiology behind sport and exercise. You’ll learn how the body’s systems — including energy, cardiovascular, nervous and endocrine — work together during physical activity. You’ll also get hands-on experience in lab sessions, where you’ll carry out physiological tests and start applying theory to practice. Indicative Content - Introduction to systems and cells: Organisation of the human body, structure and function of cells. - Nervous system and muscle contraction: Basic structure of the nervous system. This will include an introduction to motor and sensory nerves, skeletal muscle structure, muscle fibre types, motor units and muscle excitation and contraction. - Bioenergetics and metabolism: Use of carbohydrates and fats as fuels to provide energy at rest and during exercise. Influence of selected hormones on metabolism and fuel use. - Cardiovascular system: Basic anatomy and physiology of cardiovascular system including: structure function of the heart and blood vessels. An introduction to the electrical activity of the heart.
In this module, you’ll look at what drives people to be active — and what stops them. You’ll explore the benefits of physical activity, the risks of inactivity, and the impact these have on health and wellbeing. You’ll also learn how interventions can help people move more and sit less. Indicative content: - Psychological determinants of exercise: Exercise motivation; sleep and impact on psychological and physical health; self competencies; social physique anxiety; impacts of social media and technology on psychological and physical health; attitudes and beliefs about health. - Psychological outcomes of exercise: Mechanisms and hypotheses; self-esteem; mood enhancement through activity; harmful psychological effects of exercise. - Models of health behaviour: Health belief model, Attitudinal-based theories, Self-efficacy and competence-based theories, Self-determination, transtheoretical model. - Physical activity promotion: Individual/group and community interventions.
Explore the key concepts of sport and exercise psychology and how they apply to real-world settings. You’ll examine how thoughts, emotions and behaviours influence performance, participation and wellbeing in sport and exercise. You’ll also look at how personal and social factors shape, and are shaped by, people’s involvement in physical activity. Indicative content - Definition of the field of sport and exercise psychology - Fundamentals of sport and exercise psychology - Individual factors: The role of personality in sport; models of achievement motivation and competitiveness; motivational climates; stress, arousal, anxiety and other emotional processes. - Group processes: Group and team dynamics, group cohesion, communication, leadership. - An introduction to psychological skills
Explore the core principles of physiology and how they apply to sport and exercise. You’ll learn about energy systems, fatigue, and how the cardiovascular system adapts to physical activity. You’ll also examine how exercise affects different populations, including those with specific health or performance needs. Indicative content - Fundamentals of bioenergetics: You'll further explore the core concepts of energy production during exercise, examining the interaction of the different energy systems during exercise, how these change with intensity of activity and the role of the endocrine system. You'll also begin to explore protein metabolism - Neuromuscular adaptations to exercise: You'll learn about how the body adapts to different types of exercise (endurance, resistance and high intensity). - Fatigue: You'll learn about possible causes of peripheral fatigue during exercise. - Cardiovascular adaptations to endurance training: You'll learn about how the cardiovascular system adapts to endurance training and how this can influence performance. - Physiological Testing: You'll explore a number of physiological tests that are used routinely for health and fitness assessment. You'll develop an understanding of the tests and their limitations and will be introduced to ethical and practical considerations when working with individuals with protected characteristics. You'll also learn how to analyse and interpret the results of physiological tests.
This module will give you the opportunity to lead, develop and/or support the delivery of physical activity sessions to school pupils in Dundee. You'll also have an opportunity to engage with a range of employers from the Sport and Fitness industry to gain insight into the requirements of particular roles. These experiences should enable you to develop a career plan for future employment. Indicative content - Planning and delivering activity sessions: Session planning; managing time/resources/people; working within a team; Active Schools/Positive Coaching Scotland training; physical literacy and the development of this in children, managing challenging behaviour; developing diversity competence; Growth Mindset; contemporary issues in the sport and fitness industry. - Personal Development Planning (PDP): Completing SWOT analyses; personal objective/goal setting; action planning; electronic PDPs. - Reflective practice: Application of models of reflective practice; guided reflection to highlight learning; making theory− practice links; career planning. - Articulating skill development: Using electronic platforms and oral media to promote knowledge and skills to external audiences in the context of employability; careers/external speaker workshops.
Explore how physical activity supports health and wellbeing across different populations. You’ll examine patterns and trends in physical activity and learn how to evaluate the evidence linking movement to physical and mental health. You’ll be introduced to the principles of exercise programme design and begin developing the skills to plan safe, effective and tailored interventions. You’ll also study behaviour change and motivation, learning how to help others start and sustain active lifestyles. Indicative content - The fundamental concepts and public health principles related to physical activity and health: 'Introduction to physical activity and public health - The role and importance of physical activity for health and wellbeing: Introduction to, and understanding the nature and quality of, evidence of how physical activity can impact both physical and mental health. - The introduction to the fundamental concepts and principles of exercise programme design: These include varying exercise modalities and their benefits for the maintenance of general health and wellbeing.
Please note: If you are a Direct Entrant (new student) to this year of study and have not previously taken module ABE101, then you MUST take ABE201 as your Term 2 microcredential module. If you have previously taken ABE101, then you are NOT permitted to take ABE201 in Term 2. Starting university brings new opportunities and challenges, and every student’s journey is different. This microcredential helps you settle into life at Abertay and build the habits that lead to success. You’ll hear from current students sharing their own tips, and reflect on the areas you most want to develop. You’ll get to know Abertay’s systems, explore what makes a successful student and practise core skills such as time management, referencing, academic writing style and using support services. By the end, you’ll have the tools and strategies you need to thrive at university. Indicative content - Navigating Abertay Systems: Get to know the key systems you’ll use at Abertay—such as MyLearningSpace, MS Teams, OASIS and MyAbertay—and learn how to use them effectively. - Expectations of University and You: Explore what’s expected of you as a student and what you can expect from the university. Topics include the code of conduct, independent and blended learning, how courses are structured, health and safety, and the Abertay attributes. - Abertay Discovery Tool: Complete the Discovery Tool to identify your strengths and areas for development across five themes: studying at university, academic skills, digital skills, careers and employability, and wellbeing. - Fundamentals of University: Learn how modules work, how assessments are set, and how to use assignment briefs and feedback to improve your work. - Understanding, Searching and Evaluating Information: Develop strategies for finding and assessing reliable information, building your confidence in research and study skills. - Successful Student Behaviours: Practise the habits that help you succeed: managing time, avoiding procrastination, effective note-taking, preparing for classes, developing a growth mindset, and making use of student support services. - Referencing: Understand academic integrity and why referencing matters. Learn how to avoid plagiarism, create in-text citations and reference lists, and use digital tools to manage your sources. - Sounding Academic: Discover what lecturers mean by “academic style” and how to use the right language in your writing. Learn the rules of academic writing, how to paraphrase effectively, and how expectations differ between school/college and university. You’ll also explore how assessments, marking and feedback work.
In this module, you’ll be introduced to the key biomechanical principles that underpin sport, health and performance. You’ll learn how the body moves and applies force, and how to analyse these movements using biomechanical laboratory techniques. Through practical sessions, you’ll explore concepts such as movement analysis, ground reaction forces and Newton’s Laws in action. Indicative content - Biomechanical concepts in sport and exercise: Further develop understanding of how linear kinetics and kinematics influence performance and health measures. This includes kinematic measures of motion, forces calculations (ground reaction force, impulse), movement of mass and power development. These will be considered and applied in a sport, health and exercise context. - Specialist equipment use (health): Learn about the use of specialist equipment, such as force platforms, 2D motion analysis, contact mats, and electromyography to assess injury risk. - Specialist equipment use (performance): Learn about the use of specialist equipment, such as force platforms, 2D motion analysis, contact mats, and electromyography to improve performance. - Research Design: Consider the importance of research design and how to identify variable types and control measures needed for robust biomechanical experiments.
In this module, you’ll develop your understanding of research in sport, exercise, physical activity and health. You’ll learn how to critically engage with published studies and gain the skills to design and plan your own research project, preparing you to investigate real-world questions in your chosen field. Indicative Content - The Research Process: You’ll be introduced to the full research journey, from planning through to carrying out a study. By engaging with each stage, you’ll gain a clear understanding of how research is designed, managed and delivered. - Formulating and Refining Research Questions: You’ll learn how research ideas are generated and developed into clear, focused questions. This will help you refine your own ideas into questions that can be explored through research. - Research Methodologies: You’ll explore a range of research approaches — including quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods — and develop an appreciation of how different methodologies can be applied to sport, exercise, physical activity and health. - Ethical Issues: You’ll build an awareness of the key ethical considerations involved in research, such as protecting participants and ensuring integrity, and learn how these principles guide good research practice. - Practical Skill Development: You’ll have the chance to develop hands-on research skills within your chosen discipline area, giving you the confidence to apply what you’ve learned in real-world research projects.
This module gives you the opportunity to carry out your own independent research project. You’ll choose a subject area that reflects your degree pathway, allowing you to explore a topic that interests you while developing valuable research and project management skills. Indicative Content - Research Project Topics: You’ll choose your own research project topic in consultation with staff, ensuring it reflects your degree pathway and interests. Each student will be allocated a supervisory tutor within the Division to provide guidance and support throughout the process. - Supervisory Sessions: Through regular supervisory sessions, you’ll be guided step by step: from identifying a clear research question and designing your study, to selecting appropriate research methods and statistical analyses. You’ll also learn how to structure and write your research report, interpret your findings, and draw meaningful conclusions. These sessions are designed to help you develop independence while giving you the support you need to succeed.
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