Where to go: Computational and visual what-if analyses in soccer

ABSTRACT

To prepare their teams for upcoming matches, analysts in professional soccer watch and manually annotate up to three matches a day. When annotating matches, domain experts try to identify and improve suboptimal movements based on intuition and professional experience. The high amount of matches needing to be analysed manually result in a tedious and time-consuming process, and results may be subjective. We propose an automatic approach for the realisation of effective region-based what-if analyses in soccer. Our system covers the automatic detection of region-based faulty movement behaviour, as well as the automatic suggestion of possible improved alternative movements. As we show, our approach effectively supports analysts and coaches investigating matches by speeding up previously time-consuming work. We enable domain experts to include their domain knowledge in the analysis process by allowing to interactively adjust suggested improved movement, as well as its implications on region control. We demonstrate the usefulness of our proposed approach via an expert study with three invited domain experts, one being head coach from the first Austrian soccer league. As our results show that experts most often agree with the suggested player movement (83%), our proposed approach enhances the analytical capabilities in soccer and supports a more efficient analysis.     

Football practice with youth players in the “Footbonaut”

In today’s leading football training centres, state-of-the-art performance diagnostic systems such as the “Footbonaut” allow controlled and standardized assessments of physical and mental components of agility, e.g. speed of action and ball control, that are considered to be decisive for talent identification and development. However, effects of induced physical and mental strain on performing football-specific practice patterns remain to be elucidated, particularly in youth players, and, thus, characterize the purpose of this study. 33 randomly assigned competitive football players (U14 to U16) performed a standardized Footbonaut practice pattern (i.e. 20 balls randomly drawn at 50?km/h each), prior to and immediately after either mentally demanding tasks (MDT; n?=?11; continuous Vienna Test System’s Stroop task and determination test), physically demanding tasks (PDT; n?=?11; consisted of 4?×?4?min of football-specific high-intensity intervals with 3?min of active recovery in between) or a control condition (CON; n?=?11). Continuous heart rates (HR) as well as self-perceptions of fatigue were assessed. Main findings revealed performances for speed of action (p?=?0.44; f?=?0.01) and ball control (p?=?0.15; f?=?0.03) that were not modulated in the face of induced physical and mental strain as indicated by increased HR following PDT (p?<?0.001; d?>?0.8), or in the face of increased self-perceptions of fatigue following PDT and MDT (both p?<?0.001; both d?>?0.8) compared to CON. This is in line with a suggested talent factor and previous reports on motivational trade-off aspects in youth players. However, the present study’s short-timed practice patterns make it difficult to reliably compare a measuring sensitivity to complex football-specific movement behavioural and technical proficiencies with respect to mental and physical strain of longer-lasting football games and, thus, need further investigation in favour of improving talent identification and development using the Footbonaut.     

Adapting instruction to individual difference among students

This article discusses some of the problems in research on aptitude treatment interactions (ATIs). Among these are the inconsistency and lack of generality in many ATI findings, especially in classroom based ATI investigations. It is suggested that such investigations may well be of limited generality due to the nature of the phenomena. Careful classification of aptitude and treatment variables between individual differences in prior achievement and instructional method avoids some of the problems of other approaches, including examining interactions between cognitive processes and instructional method. Suggestions for further ATI research are made.     

Emotions and the liminal space in entrepreneurship education

ABSTRACT

Emotions are present in all learning processes, including those in entrepreneurship education. In this paper, we investigate which kinds of emotions exist in entrepreneurship education at university and in which contexts they occur, and show how the concept of liminal spaces – spaces of transformation in which students encounter high degrees of uncertainty, while their potential for learning is maximised – can be used in order to understand the role of negative emotions for entrepreneurship education. Providing examples from courses on entrepreneurship for Engineering and Business Administration students at a German university, we are able to confirm findings of existing literature on the type and sources of emotions. Moreover, our findings suggest that reflection of students on emotional processes that involve the endurance of uncertainty contribute significantly to the achievement of learning outcomes and that – within the limits of existing learning cultures and guidelines for assessment – teachers can facilitate such processes.     

Measuring learning for citizenship

Over the past two hundred years or so, there has been a remarkable growth in the professionalization of occupations. This article identifies a range of social theories that may be used as maps and compasses to gain a deeper understanding of the processes of professionalization and the roles of professional education and particularly continuing professional education (CPE) in these processes. Underlying the article is the notion that educators working in this field are poorly served by the lack of adequate social theory. The article discusses limitations inherent in technicist and instrumentalist theories and various forms of liberal functionalist theory of professionalization and CPE. It then goes on to suggest the beginnings of an alternative critical social theory that may inform our thinking about professionalization and CPE. It suggests that sites of continuing professional learning and education may usefully be conceptualized as sites of struggle, and identifies a number of areas of tension and contradiction that, it is argued, must inform debates about the aims, purposes and structure of CPE, about who should gain access to what forms of knowledge, and about which forms of knowledge should be seen as most valuable. It suggests that these questions are primarily political and cannot be resolved in instrumental and technical terms alone. The contradictions and tensions identified give rise to ethical issues, issues of competence, excellence and mediocrity, issues surrounding the role of the state, professional self-regulation and monopolization, the links that may or may not be developed with wider political and industrial struggles of working people, issues concerned with occupational imperialism vs. the legitimation of occupations, professionalization and bureaucratization, and issues concerning professionalization and globalization. The hope is that this article will provoke further theorizing. In particular, I hope that it will stimulate critical research, which will look historically at the professionalization of a range of occupations and the role of CPE in this process.     

The dynamics of online learning at the workplace: Peer-facilitated social learning and the application in practice

Research stresses the importance of social components in learning. The social contact with peers and tutors stimulates reflection and supports higher processes of learning necessary for the internalisation and application of new knowledge. However, merely proposing opportunities for interaction does not necessarily lead to fruitful discussion and collaboration. Social presence and facilitation are key concepts for successful mutual learning. Both are represented in Murphy’s collaboration model; social presence forms the basis of collaboration on which discussions and co-construction of knowledge evolve. Facilitation supports the entire collaboration process. In this paper, an adjusted version of Murphy’s model was applied to analyse 1085 comments shared in an online course between career practitioners of a public employment service. The results show that without a dedicated tutor, learners can still be involved in collaborative learning and co-construction of new knowledge provided that the topic under discussion is highly relevant and controversial. Learners themselves take over social presence and facilitation activities, but less frequently than when a professional tutor facilitates discussions. Ex post summative evaluation revealed that only a few learners applied the gained knowledge in the long-term. As comparisons with related research suggest, higher facilitation support leading to a higher cognitive interaction with the learning could have better supported the transfer to practice.