Confirmatory factor analysis of the Test of Performance Strategies (TOPS) among adolescent athletes

The aim of the present study was to examine the factorial validity of the Test of Performance Strategies (TOPS; Thomas et al., ) among adolescent athletes using confirmatory factor analysis. The TOPS was designed to assess eight psychological strategies used in competition (i.e. activation, automaticity, emotional control, goal-setting, imagery, negative thinking, relaxation and self-talk,) and eight used in practice (the same strategies except negative thinking is replaced by attentional control). National-level athletes (n?=?584) completed the 64-item TOPS during training camps. Fit indices provided partial support for the overall measurement model for the competition items (robust comparative fit index?=?0.92, Tucker-Lewis index?=?0.88, root mean square error of approximation?=?0.05) but minimal support for the training items (robust comparative fit index?=?0.86, Tucker-Lewis index?=?0.81, root mean square error of approximation?=?0.06). For the competition items, the automaticity, goal-setting, relaxation and self-talk scales showed good fit, whereas the activation, emotional control, imagery and negative thinking scales did not. For the practice items, the attentional control, emotional control, goal-setting, imagery and self-talk scales showed good fit, whereas the activation, automaticity and relaxation scales did not. Overall, it appears that the factorial validity of the TOPS for use with adolescents is questionable at present and further development is required.     

Mediating Peer Teaching for Learning Games: An Action Research Intervention Across Three Consecutive Sport Education Seasons

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to provide an integrated analysis of a teacher’s peer-teaching mediation strategies, the student-coaches’ instruction, and the students’ gameplay development across 3 consecutive seasons of sport education. Method: Twenty-six 7th-grade students participated in 3 consecutive sport education seasons of invasion games (basketball, handball, and soccer). The research involved 3 action research cycles, 1 per season, and each cycle included the processes of planning, acting and monitoring, reflecting, and fact finding. Data collection consisted of videotape and audiotape records of all 47 lessons, a reflective field diary kept by the first author in the role of teacher-researcher, and a total of 24 semistructured focus-group interviews. Trustworthiness criteria for assuring the quality of qualitative research included extensive data triangulation, stakeholders’ crosschecking, and collaborative interpretational analysis. Results: Through the application of systematic preparation strategies, student-coaches were able to successfully conduct team instruction that resulted in students’ tactical development and improved performance. Aspects such as the study of predominant configurations of players’ gameplay and similar tactical principles across games within the same category prevented a setback in the complexity of the learning content addressed at the beginning of each season. Players also showed an increasing ability to adapt gameplay to game conditions. Conclusions: While sport education has the capacity to develop competent players, different levels of teacher guidance and learners’ instructional responsibility are necessary when teaching tactics.     

“Sometimes you go into competitions with little or no expectations”: England,Euro 2012 in the context of austerity

This paper analyses media coverage of the England football team in the run up to Euro 2012. The study also describes the dominant discourse of ‘low expectations’ underpinning media representations of England and considers various reasons for this. Short-term factors are considered, including the resignation of the England manager, the intra-team tensions arising from racism, along with longer-term factors, including the perceived constraints placed on the England national team’s development by the English Premier League. While these factors are important, they cannot alone, or even in combination, sufficiently explain why the discourse of ‘low expectations took such a hold over media representations of the England national team. One missing factor is the broader problems facing the economy and society, particularly the preoccupation with ‘austerity’, which has created an aura of low expectations; particularly, the tendency to represent ‘austerity’ as ‘growth’ in a ‘low expectations’ culture. Previous research has demonstrated the links between the fortunes of the wider economy and sentiments surrounding the fate of the English national team. This article takes the opportunity to reconsider these wider links in terms of an elective affinity, arguing that the discourse of ‘low expectations’ haunting the England team in the present period is the manifestation and transference of a more pervasive general lowering of expectations among the media and the political elite, concerning the present and future political economic prospects of economic growth and social prosperity.     

Come home to college

Because of new applications of telecommunications, especially television, adults today have increasing flexibility in taking advantage of college courses in the privacy and convenience of their homes. The quality of courses has improved greatly in the last few years, and they are available in a variety of subject areas. Today's television courses are carefully designed and produced by teams of leading scholars and producers. Most of the country's public televison stations broadcast one or more television courses, each semester. In addition, many are broadcast on local cable channels. Most of the students for television courses are older than traditional college students, female and employed. They view the television courses at home. In the future, the personal computer can be expected to add new dimensions and flexibility to homebased college education.     

Towards a Theory of Aesthetic Learning

D.H. Hargreaves's “traumatic theory of aesthetic learning” is reviewed in the light of research on educational events in the areas of creative writing and drama. If the full educational benefits of conversive drama are to be realised, they have to be seen within the context of more gradual cumulation of skills and knowledge. Before the trauma, students are prepared by confidence‐building, having their sensitivities sharpened, abilities encouraged, and acquiring control and power of expression. During and after the trauma there is considerable personal development, students discovering new things about themselves, maturing, and in some cases being transformed. They acquire more of the art of learning, involving skills of both expression and appreciation. There is also notable social development, resulting in the experience of communitas, wherein participants rise above institutional structures and statuses and develop exceptional community spirit. Above all, conversive trauma excites the emotions, at first in uncontrollable ways, but the educational experience involves the individual coming to terms with, and understanding, the disturbance. A theory of aesthetic learning is advanced involving a constructivist teaching style, charismatic personal qualities, naturalistic context, co‐operation, appropriate content, and grounded and open enquiry.