Lost and Found: Making Sense of Foreign Spaces and the Self with Public Transport

How does public transport both enable and restrict one’s negotiation and interaction with cultural, social and material landscapes? The understanding of social space and self is guided by one’s journey through those spaces, by witnessing events and public conduct. This article presents autoethnographic accounts of two communication studies researchers placed in Cape Town, South Africa, and Helsinki, Finland, for more than three months. In both situations, researchers relied on public transport with which they were unfamiliar. This study considers how those experiences were perceived, and how the researchers encountered and experienced the new social environments, local population and themselves.     

Trait Affection Given and Received: A Test of Hofstede’s Theoretical Framework

This study sought to address Hofstede and McCrae’s (2004) call for systematic cross-cultural comparisons of trait-like attributes. Specifically, we examined the extent to which Danish, Icelandic, Polish, and American adults’ trait affection given and trait affection received are (a) dependent on national origin, and (b) associated with Hofstede’s dimensions of cultures (i.e. individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance). The participants (N = 606) completed a questionnaire in English that consisted of the trait affection given and trait affection received scales. Results of a multivariate analysis of variance and linear regression analyses revealed that people’s trait affection given and received are (a) dependent on national origin, and (b) associated with Hofstede’s dimensions of cultures.     

Effect of a Brazilian Jiu-jitsu-simulated tournament on strength parameters and perceptual responses

This study aimed to analyse the effects of a simulated Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) tournament on vertical jump performance, grip strength test and perceived effort responses. 22 male BJJ athletes participated in a simulated tournament consisting of three 7 min matches separated by 14 min of rest. Kimono grip strength test (KGST), counter movement jump (CMJ) and rate of perceived exertion (RPE) were measured before and after each match, while RPE of specific areas was assessed after three matches. ANOVA for repeated measures was used to compare strength parameters after each match with the level of significance set at 5%. The key results showed a significant decrease of jump height (p = 0.001) and net vertical impulse in the CMJ (p = 0.031), as well as a reduction of the number of reps in the KGST (p < 0.001). A significant increase of RPE was found throughout the matches (p < 0.001). Considering the RPE in specific areas, no differences were observed between the upper and lower body (p = 0.743). We conclude that the BJJ simulated tournament generated a decrease of performance in both upper and lower limbs and provoked a progressive increase in the effort perception over the matches.     

Training and development of Canadian wheelchair basketball players

Considering the growth in research, examining the development of mainstream sport athletes over the past two decades, studies examining development of athletes with disabilities have been surprisingly limited. While similarities in developmental trajectories between the two cohorts may exist regarding factors such as the value of practice, which tend to be universal regardless of context, disability-related issues (e.g. whether the disability was congenital or acquired) may influence the course of development, affecting variables such as starting age, training and developmental milestones. Fifty-two male and female athletes training with the Wheelchair Basketball Canada National Academy provided detailed training histories. Athletes illustrated similar developmental patterns (e.g. milestones, training adjustments) as they progressed through their sporting career. However, athletes with congenital disabilities started participation in wheelchair basketball and unorganised practice at significantly younger ages (t₄₉?=??4.35, p?<?.001, d =?1.32; t₄₉?=??3.49, p?<?.001, d =?1.03, respectively). While athletes with congenital disabilities continued to reach a majority of the sporting milestones at younger ages, athletes with acquired disabilities were able to reach late career milestones (e.g. national debuts) at similar ages. Athletes’ disability severity did not influence their progress through the developmental milestones and time devoted to training throughout their sporting career. Future work may consider examining developmental trajectories and training histories of athletes in various parasports to extend our understanding of their development and skill acquisition.     

Effect of the look-up line on the gaze and head orientation of elite ice hockey players

Abstract

A “look-up line” (LUL) has been proposed for ice hockey, which is an orange 1?m (40′) warning line (WL) painted on the ice at the base of the boards. The LUL purports to provide an early warning to players to keep their head up prior to and as they are being checked. We determined if players looked up more on a rink with the LUL compared to a traditional Control rink. Elite offensive (O) and defensive (D) players competed 1 vs. 1, while wearing an eye tracker that recorded their quiet eye (QE) and fixation and tracking (F-T) and an electrogoniometer that measured head angle. External cameras recorded skate duration during four skate phases: P1 preparation, P2 decision-making, P3 cut to boards, P4 contact. The QE was the final fixation prior to contact between O and D as they skated towards and across the WL during P3 and P4. Skate phase durations (%) did not differ by rink or rink by position. More QE and F-T occurred on the WL on the LUL rink than on the Control. The expected increase in head angle on the LUL rink did not occur during P3 or P4. Post-hoc results also showed O and D skated further from the boards on the LUL rink, suggesting the players preferred to control the puck on white ice, rather than the orange colour of the LUL rink. More research is needed to determine if these results apply to the competitive setting.     

Does regional disadvantage affect health-related sport and physical activity level? A multi-level analysis of individual behaviour

This study examines the role of regional government quality in health-related participation in sport and physical activity among adults (18–64 years) in 28 European countries. The importance of the analysis rests in the relative autonomy that regional and local governments have over policy decisions connected with sport and physical activity. While existing studies have focussed on economic and infrastructural investment and expenditure, this research investigates the quality of regional governments across 208 regions within 28 European countries. The individual-level data stem from the 2013 Eurobarometer 80.2 (n?=?18,675) and were combined with regional-level data from Eurostat. An individual's level of participation in sport and physical activity was measured by three variables reflecting whether an individual's activity level is below, meets, or exceeds the recommendations of the World Health Organization. The results of multi-level analyses reveal that regional government quality has a significant and positive association with individual participation in sport and physical activity at a level meeting or exceeding the guidelines. The impact is much larger than that of regional gross domestic product per capita, indicating that regional disadvantage in terms of political quality is more relevant than being disadvantaged in terms of economic wealth.     

Quiet eye training aids the long-term learning of throwing and catching in children: Preliminary evidence for a predictive control strategy

Abstract

Quiet eye training (QET) may be a more effective method for teaching children to catch than traditional training (TT) methods, but it is unclear if the benefits accrued persist in the long term. Thirty children were randomly allocated into a QET or TT group and, while wearing a mobile eye tracker, underwent baseline testing, training and two retention tests over a period of eight weeks, using a validated throw and catch task. During training, movement-related information was provided to both groups, while the QET group received additional instruction to increase the duration of their targeting fixation (QE1) on the wall prior to the throw, and pursuit tracking (QE2) period on the ball prior to catching. In both immediate (R1) and delayed (R2, six weeks later) retention tests, the QET group had a significantly longer QE1 duration and an earlier and longer QE2 duration, compared to the TT group, who revealed no improvements. A performance advantage was also found for the QET compared to the TT group at both R1 and R2, revealing the relatively robust nature of the visuomotor alterations. Regression analyses suggested that only the duration of QE1 predicted variance in catch success post-training, pointing to the importance of a pre-programming visuomotor strategy for successful throw and catch performance.     

Exploring the effects of substituting basketball players in high-level teams

Substituting basketball players during competition is a key process to optimise collective performance. Available research on this topic is scarce, probably due to the difficulty in isolating these effects; thus, the aim of this study was to identify the temporal effects of substitutions in basketball (Spanish professional basketball league). The sample was composed of 1118 substitutions gathered from 21 basketball games. The analysed variables were coach-controlled (player and team’s personal fouls, player in and player out roles, player’s in and out minutes on-court and timeout situation); on-court (foul committed, free throws, 2- and 3-point field-goal effectiveness) and situational variables (scoreline, quality of opposition, game location and game quarter). The results showed positive scoring performances after the substitution for all the analyses. During the first quarter, there were significant effects for fouls committed, scoreline and game location after the substitution. The player’s out personal fouls, free-throw effectiveness, player in, minutes on-court player in, timeout situation and 3-point field-goal effectiveness were significant during the second quarter. The team’s personal fouls, game location, and scoreline were identified as important in the third quarter. The fourth quarter did not show significant effects on the independent variables. Current findings allow optimising coaches’ plans and team management of on-court and bench players throughout the game.     

A scale-based approach to interdisciplinary research and expertise in sports

After more than 20 years since the introduction of ecological and dynamical approaches in sports research, their promising opportunity for interdisciplinary research has not been fulfilled yet. The complexity of the research process and the theoretical and empirical difficulties associated with an integrated ecological-dynamical approach have been the major factors hindering the generalisation of interdisciplinary projects in sports sciences. To facilitate this generalisation, we integrate the major concepts from the ecological and dynamical approaches to study behaviour as a multi-scale process. Our integration gravitates around the distinction between functional (ecological) and execution (organic) scales, and their reciprocal intra- and inter-scale constraints. We propose an (epistemological) scale-based definition of constraints that accounts for the concept of synergies as emergent coordinative structures. To illustrate how we can operationalise the notion of multi-scale synergies we use an interdisciplinary model of locomotor pointing. To conclude, we show the value of this approach for interdisciplinary research in sport sciences, as we discuss two examples of task-specific dimensionality reduction techniques in the context of an ongoing project that aims to unveil the determinants of expertise in basketball free throw shooting. These techniques provide relevant empirical evidence to help bootstrap the challenging modelling efforts required in sport sciences.