Research Reviews

Duarte Araújo, Christina Fonseca, Keith Davids, Júlio Garganta, Anna Volossovitch, Regina Brandão, and Ruy Krebs The Big Idea Essentially, this publication is a position paper.  The topic of the paper is the development of sport expertise.  The more conventional understanding of the interactions between an individual and a specific performance environment is to seek explanations for such expertise based mostly on what is going on “inside” the player (referred to as “organismic asymmetry”).  The less conventional understanding—and the position taken in this paper—is that too…

Hugo Sarmento, Antonio Pereira, Maria T. Anguera, Jorge Canpanico, and Jose Leitao The Big Idea What separates this research paper on coaching football from so many coming before it is the decision of method.  If you are looking for yet another theoretical and quantitatively-driven model of how coaches should coach football, keep looking.  In this paper, the reader will certainly find a suggested model; but it is one that doesn’t depend on theory-building or statistics.  Instead it is derived from the practices and reflective voices…

Pedro Passos and Keith Davids The Big Idea These authors, Passos and Davids, call their paper an “opinion piece.”  Not so.  It is an intelligent discussion of ecological dynamics played out in the learning of team sports through the interactive nature of the sport performance.  Such interactions include those within the team and between the team and the opposing players.  This dynamic continuously unfolds as players from both teams interact with constraints such as rules and boundaries, attempts at coordinating attacks and defenses and counter…

Tim Kasser, Steve Cohn, Allen Kanner, Richard Ryan The Big Idea It might seem from the title of this research discussion on American corporate capitalism that it might have little relevance for the interests of our loyal Player Development Project readers.  Well, if you give this summary a go you will likely change your mind.  If one thinks a bit about the values and goals of corporate capitalism, it is impossible to ignore what has mysteriously become something of “the elephant in the room” in…

Dan P. McAdams and Jennifer L. Pals The Big Idea One chronic problem with depending on research results as an aid to coaching practice is the practice of research itself.  All too often researchers are engaged in an on-going competitive practice of their own: grand theory building.  The theories themselves are generally not that complicated, but the continuous defence of them against adversaries creates a good simulation of a contact sport.  A consequence is perpetual uncertainty regarding whether there is progressive improvement in our understanding…

John W. Mahoney, Daniel F. Gucciardi, Clifford Mallett, and Nikos Ntoumanis The Big Idea It would be difficult to find an adult athlete or coach who doesn’t have a favourite quote on the need for mental toughness in competitive sports.  Who hasn’t heard the general adage that success in sports is 10% physical and 90% mental?  Or who among us hasn’t read the mighty locker room posters from the past:  from Babe Ruth, “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up;” from Bobby…

P.R. Ford and A.M. Williams The Big Idea The American golfer Arnold Palmer (1929-2016) once said “It’s a funny thing, the more I practice the luckier I get.”  Risking over-simplification, Palmer’s witty observation is a fair one-sentence summary of this discussion on what research tells the coach about developing elite soccer players.  Risking over-complication, the deeper question isn’t how much one practices, but how much one practices the right kind of practice.  The authors of this paper urge coaches and players who strive to be in…

Tristan J. Coulter, Clifford J. Mallett, Jefferson A. Singer, Daniel F. Gucciardi The Big Idea There is nothing easy about the study of personality.  Over the years, psychologists who do so have generated an incredible number of ways to describe and depict who or what a person is.  One of the oldest and maybe the clearest ways of looking at what personality psychologists do is this:  they study how a person is like all other persons; like some other persons; and like no other persons. …

Antonio J. Figueiredo, Carlos E. Goncalves, Manuel J. Coelho E Silva, and Robert M. Malina The Big Idea The customary belief about youth and sports is that the youngsters who drop out of youth sports are developmentally disadvantaged somehow when compared to those who succeed over time.  But a question immediately arises:  What is meant by developmental disadvantage? The big idea of this research study is to help remove some of the mystery behind what kinds of differences between youngsters are or are not relatively…

Clifford Mallett and Sergio Lara-Bercial The Big Idea The rub for these researchers is that the empirical basis for the vocation of sports coaching is seriously limited exactly at the time it is most needed.  The burgeoning growth of national and international high performance sports in the last few decades certainly calls for professional coaches.  It is a surprise then that the process of professionalising high performance coaches is still so little understood.  The Research What we know already about highly successful coaches? Surveying the…

Sara D. L. Dos Santos, Daniel Memmert, Jaime Sampaio, and Nuno Leite The Big Idea In the team sports it is traditional that when coaches are asked what they are coaching, the usual response is, for example, “I coach soccer.”  But if soccer coaches were collectively to adopt the general idea of what these researchers call the Creativity Development Framework, they might be more inclined to say “I coach creativity.”  However odd this latter response may seem, the authors of this paper imply that this…

N. Balague, C. Torrents, R. Hristovski, and J. A. S. Kelso The Big Idea As scientific disciplines go, sport science is but a babe in the historical woods of science proper. In spite of the fact that the recent evolution of sport science is essentially interdisciplinary, many believe it has already become a victim of its own success. That is, instead of achieving its promise of successfully integrating the disciplines and sub-disciplines it is composed of (such as anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, psychology, sociology, and the…

Alfonso Del Percio The Big Idea Perhaps an analogy might bring home the big idea of this research paper.  In the world of Western Pleasure Horse Competition, the competitor is penalised if the horse swishes its tail.  Although now illegal, it was a common practice among competitors to eliminate this possibility by “nerving” the horse’s tail.  Nerving was essentially deadening the tail by cutting the nerves in the tail.  This prevented the horse losing points for the rider in the show. Now this abuse caused…

Carol S. Dweck The Big Idea A good number of years ago the American educator and philosopher, John Dewey, wrote a little, sticky sentence when talking about learning.  It was this sentence: “We must have lions in our path.”  In a general sense, Carol Dweck’s literature research review turns nicely on exactly that sentence.  Dewey was arguing that progressive human development depended upon facing challenges.  How we respond to those challenges largely defines the extent to which we become all that we can be. Dweck’s subject…

Alfonso Montuori The Big Idea While summarising Montuori’s paper may well bring it home to the reader, there is an even better way to see the Big Idea.  For a wonderful and current example of this big idea in action, just follow the United States Presidential election process for the duration of the summer and fall of 2016.  In it you will see exactly what an anti-pluralist, totalitarian mind-set is in the so-called campaign of the Republican candidate for President. We are not trying to…

Alfonso Montuori and Ronald Purser The Big Idea Get ready for a dust-up!  The authors of this paper published a lengthy literature review and discussion on the social dimensions of creativity in an earlier paper we previously summarised for the Player Development Project.  Its title was “Deconstructing the Lone Genius Myth:  Toward a Contextual View of Creativity.”  Their primary intent in that paper was to argue that the idea of the lone genius theory of creativity needs revisiting.  It wasn’t long before Carl Hale took…

Alfonso Montuori and Ronald E. Purser The Big Idea The topic is creativity.  The problem is the stubborn persistence in popular culture of believing creative artists of all sorts—musicians, scientists, inventors, athletes, writers—are lone geniuses.  These authors ask the question:  Just how autonomous is the creative individual?  They answer:  Not very. Takeaways This paper exhibits what it explains: that creative ideas (in this case on the subject of creativity itself) depend heavily on social contexts, dimensions, and histories. The authors attempt to demystify the idea…

Tania Cassidy and Lynn Kidman The Big Idea When most anyone—whether in or out of the institution of sport—brings up the idea of coaching education programs, the quick response is “Yes, but . . .”. The “yes” is near-universal agreement that such education is necessary; the “but” is near-universal hesitation about what such programs should entail. The typical compromise results in creating programs that are big, dependent largely on generic and formal coaching courses, and entail elaborate qualifications and certificates. Cynicism usually follows. And coaching…