American Press: Applied Research in Coaching and Athletics Annual #19 (2004)

ARCAA Contents & Abstracts Volume 19, 2004

ISBN 978-0-89641-411-1

The Profile of Mood States: Susceptibility to the Influence of Impression Management and Self-deception Aspects of Socially Desirable Responding — Arnold LeUnes, Anthony E. Bourgeois, Michelle Cororve, Michael C. Meyers — The primary purpose of this research was to document the influence of impression management and self-deception response styles upon the Profile of Mood States (POMS). A total of 470 male and female undergraduate volunteers, including 75 collegiate athletic scholarship holders, completed the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR), the POMS, and indicated gender as well as whether they were athletic scholarship recipients. The POMS was found to be relatively free of the more traditional impression management (IM) response bias. However, all POMS subscales were strongly affected by self-deception (SDE) bias. Females were found to be significantly higher on the IM scale and significantly lower on SDE than were males. It is suggested that the IM and SDE constructs be considered in the design of sport psychology research involving self-report measures. (1-23)

Psychological Preparation in Elite Canoeing and Kayaking Sport Programs: Periodization and Planning — Boris Blumenstein, Ronnie Lidor — Sport psychology techniques such as imagery and relaxation should be introduced to elite athletes throughout the critical phases of their training program: preparation, competition, and transition. These techniques should help the athletes achieve the specific goals of the three fundamentals within their training program, namely, the physical, technical, and tactical. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate ways in which the applied sport psychologist can use interventional techniques while taking into account the physical, technical, and tactical state of the elite athlete during the preparatory and competition phases of their preparation for competition. Examples of psychological preparation are given for canoeing and kayaking. In addition, suggested guidelines for a single psychological session during the competition phase are provided. (24-34)

Voice Wear and Tear: A Pilot Study of Voice Care for Soccer Coaches — Mary Gorham-Rowan, Masayuki Iwahashi, Lisa Quattlebaum, Deborah Rivers — The profession of coaching frequently requires the use of prolonged or excessive loudness to effectively communicate to team members. Anecdotal evidence suggests that coaches are at risk for voice difficulties due to this pattern of voice use. Instruction in proper care and use of the voice is frequently advocated by voice therapists as a means of reducing the negative effects of poor voice usage. In this pilot study, five amateur soccer coaches participated in a four-week voice care program. The results of the study demonstrated no significant changes in objective measures of voice production but four of the participants reported improvements in voice use and quality. These preliminary findings indicate that a program of voice care may be beneficial to the maintenance of a strong voice while coaching. (35-51)

The Temporal Efficacy of Ankle Taping Verse Brace on Restriction of Ankle Inversion over an Extended Period of Activity — Charles Craven, Brian Farr, Ting Liu, Cullen Nigrini, Daniel C. Funk, Ann M. Swank — The most frequently injured body part in athletics continues to be the ankle. Ankle sprains and fractures limit sport participation in general and are most prevalent in running and jumping sports. This study compared the effectiveness of prophylactic taping versus active ankle, a semi-rigid ankle brace, in the reduction of ankle inversion in a naturalistic setting. Thirty Division I football players performed a 2-hour football practice and three measurements were recorded using a goniometer. A (2 x 3) repeated measures ANOVA revealed that ankle taping provided significantly more protection to ankle inversion than the active ankle brace for measurement occasion two and three (p < .01). It was concluded that athletic taping provided more protection against ankle inversion from the initial measurement without protection to the pre practice measurement, and to the subsequent post practice measurement than the active ankle brace. It also demonstrated that while tape support initially declined, its integrity was retained for the remainder of the workout. Therefore, tape may offer better inversion protection than active ankle over an extended period of time and may provide proprioceptive gains. (52-65)

Strategic Decision-Making: A Comparison between Novice, Intermediate and Expert Tennis Players — Nigel R. Davies, Lynn Dale Housner — The purpose of this study was to examine the strategic decision-making of tennis players of differing abilities. Six participants, classified either as novice, intermediate or expert, were interviewed before and video taped during a tennis match and followed immediately by a recall of the match, to record their pre-game intentions and during game decisions and adaptations. The data was analyzed qualitatively to identify similarities and differences between the skill groups. The differences identified suggest that coaches should spend a significant proportion of their time developing strategic decision-making capabilities of their players. (66-91)

The Involvement of Physical Education Teachers in Scholastic Coaching — Jeffrey S. Pauline, Jacalyn Lund, William Weinburg, Gina Pauline — The purpose of this investigation was to examine the reasons for physical education teachers’ previous involvement, continued involvement, or lack of involvement with interscholastic coaching. The interscholastic coaching involvement questions were one section of a larger survey that was mailed to a sample of 1589 physical education teachers in the state of Kentucky. The interscholastic coaching section of the survey was completed by 80 middle school and 112 high school physical education teachers. Only 3.8% had never coached before, 29.7% had not coached in the past 12 months, and 66.5% had coached at least one team in the past 12 months. In evaluating the factors for no longer engaging in coaching a 2 (gender) X 2 (school level) Chi Square revealed significantly more problems related to working with parents for male middle school teachers, lack of support from the school for male middle school and high school coaches, and problems related to working with players for female middle school and high school coaches as reasons for no longer engaging in coaching. A similar 2 X 2 Chi Square revealed no significant differences when evaluating reasons for continued involvement in scholastic coaching. Descriptive results for the overall sample were also presented regarding the most influential factors for never engaging, not engaging in the past 12 months, and continued involvement in scholastic coaching. (92-108)

The Impact of Relational Gender in Head Coach-Assistant Coach Dyads — Michael Sagas, George B. Cunningham — The present study aimed to contribute to the literature related to the decline of female coaches by exploring the topic through the perspective of relational gender in the superior-subordinate dyad of the head coach and assistant coach. A sample of male (n=85) and female (n=109) NCAA Division I assistant coaches responded to a mailed questionnaire. Results indicated that females possessed less job satisfaction, occupational commitment, and intentions to head coach, but perceived greater career advancement opportunities. A relational gender effect was found for the intent to head coach variable for female assistant coaches. However, other relational gender effects were not found for either gender. (109-136)

Selection Criteria for Division I Baseball Players: An Analysis of the Recruiting Process — Chris Bouldin, Kurt A. Stahura, Mike Greenwood — Recruitment can be found at all levels within the hierarchy of collegiate athletics. Recruiting at the Division I level is enormously competitive, particularly with respect to football and basketball. As a result, most of the previous research has focused upon these revenue sports (Klenosky et. al., 2001). In fact, universities allocate a large portion of their athletic funds each year for recruiting top student-athletes (Funk, 1991). There is, however, a gap in the knowledge base, which is acknowledged by scholars investigating this increasingly competitive phenomenon. Most people are very familiar with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which has over 1200 members (NCAA, 2003). There is another governing body within intercollegiate athletics, that being the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and there are other sports. A logical replication and extension investigation would be the analysis of an Olympic sport, specifically baseball, within the NAIA structure. The purpose of this study was to determine which factors were important for male baseball players in terms of where they matriculated to college. (137-165)

The Experience of Newcomers on a Varsity Sport Team — James Galipeau, Pierre Trudel — Research on communities of practice in sport (Galipeau & Trudel, 2003) has helped to better understand how athletes interact, learn together, and develop in a team setting, however, up to now there has been very little research on the specific experiences of newcomers. Lave and Wenger (1991) suggested the concept of “legitimate peripheral participation” as a way of understanding how newcomers learn to become part of a community of practice. One-hour interviews were conducted with thirteen female varsity (university) level teammates examining their experiences as newcomers to the team and their relationships with, and treatment of other newcomers who joined the team after them. Based on the findings a new model (adapted from Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002) was developed outlining different levels of participation on the team as well as the coaches’ influence. The experiences of newcomers are described and analyzed in relation to each of the four levels of this adapted model: Peripheral participation (PP), legitimate peripheral participation (LPP), rookie/veteran relationship (RVR), and full participation (FP). In light of the findings, suggestions are made on how coaches can cultivate the community of practice in order to help ease the transition of newcomers into the team. (166-188)

Financial Resource Challenges for Athletics Directors — Veronica Snow, William K. Simpson, Allyn Byars — In today’s changing athletic and financial environments it is imperative that athletic directors have an understanding of the various financial resources available to help overcome budgeting constraints. This paper provides information on and examples of different resources used to run athletic departments at all levels of competition. This includes: interscholastic, intercollegiate and professional levels. (189-206)

COACHES’ CORNER

Recommended Skills and Competencies for Collegiate Athletic Directors — William F. Stier, Jr., Robert C. Schneider(207-226)

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