Category Archives: Books

New Book Chapters

Dr Ben Langdown, a senior lecturer with #TeamOUsport was invited to contribute three chapters to a new Routledge book called ‘Strength and Conditioning for Golf: A Guide for Coaches and Players’. Ben’s applied strength and conditioning work with the West Midlands England Golf Under 18 Regional Squads provided inspiration and experience for his chapter on ‘The Junior Golfer’. Here he discusses the considerations needed for training junior golfers and some common misconceptions around strength and conditioning in this cohort.

Click on the image to see full contents page:

Ben’s other two chapters, ‘Meeting a Golfer’s Needs’ (focusing on conducting a needs analysis, profiling golfers and coaching considerations) and ‘Warming-up for Golf’ were co-authored with Dr Jack Wells of The Professional Golfers’ Association. Their recent research provided an evidence base to share within both chapters and allowed them to suggest many applied and practical solutions to working with golfers in a strength and conditioning setting.

The book, edited by Alex Bliss, was launched in August 2022 and features contributions from various experts from the world of golf and strength and conditioning.

Congratulations to Ben and his co-author Jack!

New Book Chapter

One of the #TeamOUsport lecturers, Dr Jim Lusted, recently contributed a chapter to a book collection titled ‘Community Sport Coaching: Policies and Practice’, edited by Ben Ives, Paul Potrac, Laura Gale and Lee Nelson published by Routledge. His chapter is called ‘Coaching Ethnically Diverse Participants: ‘Race’, Racism and Anti-Racist Practice in Community Sport’.

The chapter explores how issues of ‘race’, ethnicity and racism can influence community sport coaching settings, and proposes some good practice suggestions for coaches working with ethnically diverse participants. It was co-written with Dr Dan Kilvington, an academic researcher with an expertise on racism in sport and Asad Qureshi, a community sports coach with many years’ experience of coaching in ethnically diverse settings. This blend of academic theory and professional practice offers a well-rounded discussion of the key issues that coaches should consider when working with participants from a range of ethnic backgrounds. The chapter proposes the need to develop a form of coaching practice that is explicitly anti-racist in its approach to ensure that all participants are able to feel safe, enjoy and thrive during their sport experiences.

Click on the image to read the abstract:

Jim and his co-authors are currently in discussions with sport organisations to create a range of resources and training to help coaches develop an anti-racist approach to their own coaching practice.

Congratulations to Jim and his co-authors!

Lusted, J., Kilvington, D., & Qureshi, A. (2021). Coaching Ethnically Diverse Participants:‘ Race,’ Racism, and Anti-Racist Practice in Community Sport. In B. Ives et al. (eds) Community Sport Coaching. London: Routledge. Pp. 77-96.

New Book

ATHLETIC DEVELOPMENT: A PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

#TeamOUsport academics Dr Caroline Heaney, Dr Nichola Kentzer and Professor Ben Oakley have recently published a new book ‘Athletic Development: A Psychological Perspective’. The book examines some of the psychological factors that can help or hinder the development of participants in sport. It shines a unique psychological perspective on the athlete’s development through sport and explores a range of contemporary themes that influence athlete’s development including:

  • An introduction to athletic development which orientates a holistic, psychological perspective of the athletic development process.
  • Social influences on athletic development, which explores the impact of varied social influences (e.g., coach, family, peers, school) on sports participation and performance from a psychological perspective.
  • Athlete wellbeing, which explores various aspects influencing mental health and welfare as an athlete progresses through their sports career.

The book features contributions from experts in the field including #TeamOUsport central academics Jess Pinchbeck and Candice Lingam-Willgoss and associate lecturers Jo Horne and Iain Greenlees and is a core resource in our new module E312 Athletic Development: A Psychological Perspective.

The book comprises fifteen chapters as outlined below.

Section I: Athletic Development: A Holistic View of the Journey Ben Oakley

  1. What Is Athletic Development? Ben Oakley
  2. How Did We Get Here? Exploring the Evolution of Athletic Development Perspectives Ben Oakley
  3. Transitions on the Athlete Journey: A Holistic Perspective Robert Morris
  4. Retirement from Sport: The Final Transition Candice Lingam-Willgoss
  5. Researching Athletic Development Joanna Horne

Section II: Social Influences on the Athlete’s Journey Nichola Kentzer

  1. Coach-Athlete Relationships: The Role of Ability, Intentions and Integrity Sophia Jowett and Katelynn Slade
  2. Towards Mutual Understanding: Communication and Conflict in Coaching Lauren R. Tufton
  3. Creating an Optimal Motivational Climate for Effective Coaching Iain Greenlees
  4. The Family Behind the Athlete Jessica Pinchbeck
  5. How Does the School Setting Influence Athletic Development? Nichola Kentzer

Section III: Mental Health and Wellbeing on the Athlete’s Journey Caroline Heaney

  1. Understanding Mental Health and Wellbeing in Sport Caroline Heaney
  2. Developing Resilience on the Athlete’s Journey Karen Howells
  3. Thriving in Athletic Development Environments Daniel J Brown
  4. Athlete Welfare for Optimal Athletic Development Daniel J. A. Rhind

Section IV: Conclusions

  1. Effective Athletic Development: Closing Thoughts Ben Oakley, Caroline Heaney, and Nichola Kentzer

Congratulations to Caroline, Nichola and Ben and all the contributing authors!

New Book

Kieran McCartney, Staff Tutor for Sport and Fitness has recently published a book titled Mobile Education – Personalised Learning and Assessment in Remote Education: A Guide for Educators and Learners, Digital Learning and the Future. In this post he shares how mobile technology allows educators to explore various forms of assessment submissions.


NATO And Russia Can Be A Lesson On How To Alter Assessments In Education

Themes such as democracy and negotiation are evident in education as much as international affairs. The ongoing crisis between NATO and Russia is an example where two sides may continue to disagree and can still use diplomacy to aim to resolve differences. The key words in the last sentence being, aim to. The relationship between educators and learners is no different.

The presence of mobile technology either in classrooms or in eLearning environments presents an opportunity for educators to explore different forms of assessment. This can be achieved by engaging in a level of diplomacy with learners. For example, educators can share the learning outcomes for the subject area they are teaching and explore with students how learning outcomes can be achieved and demonstrated with the use of apps that are available within mobile technology. This approach involves a strong element of democratisation where learners can actively engage with educators to explore how assessment outcomes can be presented in different formats.

Using different formats in assessments may not be limited to typed documents, but also expanded to incorporate audio, audio and visual, or visual representations. Like international diplomacy, there are boundaries around what can be done, and it may fail.  But, by engaging both sides in communication learners and educators can develop an understanding of each other as well as their concerns and from that they can jointly explorer and negotiate the format of assessments to demonstrate the achievement of learning outcomes.

If you would like to learn more about how mobile technology can be used to help educators on students achieve learning outcomes in and away from the classroom, please explore –

McCartney, K. (2021) Mobile Education – Personalised Learning and Assessment in Remote Education: A Guide for Educators and Learners, Digital Learning and the Future, Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang UK, from https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/74019

 

Congratulations on the publication, Kieran!

New Book Chapter

Back in 2017, the ICSPE Symposium on ‘Physical Activity and Sport: Understanding the First Ten Years’ took place in Germany and was well attended by many international presenters and delegates.

As part of the planned follow-up to the symposium, a Routledge book titled ‘Physical Activity and Sport During the First Ten Years of Life‘ has been published and Dr Ben Langdown was invited to contribute a chapter on ‘Developing a movement culture in the first 10 years’ (Chapter 14).

The chapter focuses on stimulating young people towards physical activity and sport, explores the evidence underpinning fundamental movement skill (FMS) development, their role in physical literacy and how to observe, analyse and develop movement. The chapter provides an applied focus on best practice in primary education settings to support children towards sustained participation within a positive movement culture.

The book will be available from April 2021.

Congratulations to Ben!

New Book Publication

 

A new edited collection titled Race’, Ethnicity and Racism in Sports Coaching has recently been published by Routledge and co-edited by Dr Jim Lusted, Lecturer in Sport & Fitness in ECYS.

In collaboration with Dr Steven Bradbury from Loughborough University and Dr Jacco Van Sterkenburg from Erasmus University (Rotterdam, Holland), the book brings together leading academics from around the world in the first collection dedicated to exploring issues of ‘race’ and racism in a sport coaching setting.

This topical and timely collection is arranged into three sections, addressing the central topics of representation and racialised barriers in sports coaching; racialised identities, diversity, and intersectionality in sports coaching; and formalised racial equality interventions in sports coaching.

To mark the book launch, an online forum (video and podcast formats) was recently recorded with some of the authors to discuss the similarities and differences in the experiences of minoritised coaches, consider the effectiveness of racial equality interventions in sports coaching and explore what can be done to increase the diversity of sport coaches across the world.

The authors hope the recommendations for practice outlined in the book will be utilised by key stakeholders and practitioners to help embed the principles and practice of racial equality, diversity, and inclusion within sports coaching contexts globally.

Congratulations to Jim and the co-editors!

New Book Chapter

Following on from her recent conference presentation at the British Educational Research Association (BERA) Special Interest Group on Mental Health and Well-being in Education, Dr Nichola Kentzer has just had a book chapter published focusing on this same area. The chapter, part of a text focusing broadly on the post compulsory education and training sector, takes a view that well-being for students and staff is of key importance and recognises the valuable role that the sector can play in addressing the mental health of young people and adults. The chapter approaches this important topic by offering case studies, reflective questions and exercises on how to improve mental health and well-being, and suggests a number of tools that may be useful in facilitating well-being outcomes for both students and staff.

Congratulations to Nichola and her co-authors!

New Book

Simon Rea will publish his book Careers in Sports Science on Monday 9th September. The book is centred around 20 extended case studies of people working in a range of occupations that are relevant to students who are currently studying for sports science degrees. These include a sports psychologist, performance nutritionist, strength and conditioning coach and an exercise physiologist. He also interviewed people working in roles that are closely aligned to sport, such as a teachers/lecturers, sports coaches and personal trainers. Drawing from the content of these interviews, Simon assesses the skills that are needed to be effective in sports related occupations and most importantly how these skills can be developed during a student’s time at university. There are also chapters on preparing for study at university and the process of applying for jobs.

New Book Chapter

Dr Nichola Kentzer, whose interest spans across sport psychology and education, recently published a book chapter combining the two areas. Nichola’s chapter, written with Dr Emma Huntley from Edgehill University, ‘Sport, Psychology and Christianity: The Importance of Reflective Practice’ examines how sport psychologists can work with athletes of faith effectively. The chapter forms part of a textbook aimed to support applied practitioners.