Latest Research

Chelladurai and S. D. Saleh The Big Idea Leadership is a popular topic.  In fact, if one Googles “leadership” you come in with 751,000,000 results.  Not impressed?  Well, think of it this way: “leadership” is only 180,000,000 behind the Google results for “sex.”   So at least by this metric the general topic of this paper is remarkably popular indeed.   Of course, when you gradually narrow down the specific concerns this research study addresses, it does take a bit of a drop—“leadership in sports” comes in…

Carol S. Dweck The Big Idea “I’m quitting,” says one youth sport participant. “I give up,“ says another. What youth sport coach hasn’t faced the frustration of dealing with a child who has difficulty facing failure? Over time, a child who fails either in sports or in other life pursuits can become so affected they suffer from what is called “learned helplessness.” This study confronts this problem, one that can have untold negative impacts on an entire childhood. One approach to dealing with this kind…

Paule Miquelon and Robert J. Vallerand The Big Idea The good news coming out of the general field of psychology since the beginning of the 21st Century is what is called positive psychology. Instead of primary preoccupation with the pathology of mental illness, understanding human well-being and happiness is attracting increasing numbers of scholars and practitioners. In particular, and related directly to this research paper, there is continuing empirical interest in learning more about the relationship between various psychological factors and improvements in physical health. In…

Neils N. Rossing and Lotte S. Skrubbeltrang The Big Idea Just over 50 years ago Marshal McCluhan published a book entitled Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Its shorthand mantra was “the medium is the message.” His message has been interpreted and misinterpreted over the years. But in general McCluhan was just pointing out that with any invention or new idea or cultural artifact, there is the ground and the figure. The ground is what is obvious (the product); the figure is not-so-obvious (the message). In…

Joseph Baker and Sean Horton The Big Idea Whether human development is a product of nature or nurture is one of the longest and most colourful debates in the history of ideas. More common today however is the growing belief that we evolve by way of the intertwining of both our biological and environmental influences.   This review paper explores the impact of these interactions on human performance, and in particular, on acquiring and demonstrating sport expertise. The inherent complexity of interacting influences in the pursuit of sport expertise is…

Aidan Moran The Big Idea When it comes to research in cognitive psychology, until fairly recently there had been little interest in studying sport-related mentality. In its early history, the typical cognitive psychology researcher was quite comfortable interpreting human mental activity as information processing, as something computer-like. By implication, motor behaviour (the body) was considered to be independent of thinking. The consequence was to reduce motor skills such as sports to a rather uninteresting research status. And which in turn helped to trivialise sport actions and…

Kenneth Aggerholm The Big Idea The author of this study on the nature and significance of the aesthetic aspects of soccer sees theatricality as a “dramatic movement phenomenon in soccer.” This means that common to both theatre and sport is human expression, pure and simple. Maybe at first glance the reader may think only of the historical negativity of connecting theatre to sport; namely the unfortunate remembering of athletes playing to the crowd or the referee, or preoccupation with the exaggerations, overdoing for effect, and…

Carsten H. Larsen, Dorthee Alfermann, Kristoffer Henriksen, and Mette K. Christenson The Big Idea One easy way to understand the big idea of this research study into improved talent development in a sport such as soccer is to use an analogy. When the authors speak as they do of a holistic ecological approach to sporting talent development, it is hard not to think of growing a garden. If we want high yield in our garden we begin with the right seeds; we carefully prepare the soil…

Stewart A. Vella, Lindsay G. Oades, and Trevor P. Crowe The Big Idea This study continues the line of research by these authors into the stubborn problem of improving coach education programs. They believe that transformational leadership is a promising partial solution. Historically, transformational leadership and its modern extensions is an approach to create positive change in individuals and social systems. As a leadership concept it has been around since the late 1970s. Over time the approach has been used by government, the military, and…

Stewart A. Vella, Trevor P. Crowe, and Lindsay G. Oades The Big Idea One of the remarkable features of youth sport participation is its voluntary nature; another is how many youngsters actually participate—about two thirds of all youth according to both Australia and USA census records. But why is it then that formal coach education programs are largely unremarkable by comparison? The big idea of this paper is to offer one way to increase the effectiveness of formal and non-formal coach education. In order to help…

Daniel Kirschenbaum, Arnold Ordman, Andrew Ordman, and Robert Holtzbauer The Big Idea This study is not of this decade or even of the 21st Century (1982).  But no matter because it is a classic example of the early days of psychological research into what is called self-regulation theory.  The big idea is to figure out how and in what ways and under what conditions we can guide our own behaviors.   This study concerns self-monitoring, and especially what is called differential self-monitoring.  Its potential lesson is still relevant to modern sports skill acquisition and development….

Stewart Vella, Lindsay Oades, and Trevor Crowe The Big Idea For nearly a century youth organizations having anything to do with sports have claimed various and sundry positive outcomes as a result of such play.  Besides just keeping children occupied and out of the work force, it was generally believed that playing sports were character-building experiences.  The authors of this study are fully aware of this history.  They update the reader on the status of the current research on what is called positive youth development.  It is their view that…

PDP Lead Researcher, James Vaughan recently  attended a seminar by Joan Vila Bosch – Head of Methodology at FC Barcelona. Speaking in Christchurch, New Zealand – Joan described how and why FC Barcelona are breaking down the coaching language of war surrounding football. Moving away from what he called ‘the language of war’, Joan’s department is using scientific principles to define FC Barcelona’s game and crucially the language they use. Joan explained: “As people we are defined by our words” The language of football transmits the ideas, beliefs and values…

Bruno Travassos, Ricardo Duarte, Luís Vilar, Keith Davids & Duarte Araújo This study reinforces the practical results of recent research demonstrating that there is good sense in designing training sessions that correspond as much as possible to skills and tactics necessary for competitive game performances. This study focusses on the conditions we create when we train, and how that relates to the performance on game-day. In the sport of futsal, for example, this study demonstrates that creating more complicated passing options in practice increases the likelihood that…

Natalia B. Stambulova & Tatiana V. Ryba  The Big Idea When Pete Sampras retired from tennis in 2002 he said this:  “It’s not easy to retire at 31.  In one respect I was glad I was done.  But after a few years of having fun, I got a little restless.  When you’re 33, 34 and you don’t have a focus, you can get kind of lost.  As a man, you feel a little bit unfulfilled.” Sport careers, transitions, and assistance programs have become an active research area in the field…

Clifford J. Mallett, Stephanie J. Hanrahan The Big Idea “An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets.  He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.”   So said Emil Zatopek, the remarkable Czechoslovakian distance runner, when asked what his motivation to run was.  This one word, motivation, is a giant of a word.   In the sporting world this one word has birthed thousands and thousands of inspirational quotes, sayings, locker room chalk-talks, T-shirt slogans, marketing ploys, even prayers.  It is the one word that is…