England

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Accessibility statement
This module explores topics associated with sport and exercise psychology and introduces you to their relevance to a range of roles, such as coach, athlete, fitness participant or health professional. You’ll learn knowledge and skills that can be applied to situations you’re familiar with, can inform your practice, and can help you develop both yourself and those you work with.
Through a range of case studies the module will engage and develop your knowledge of both psychological concepts and psychological strategies, and encourage you to use this learning to inform your own practice. You’ll also build on your academic skills. The module comprises five study topics:
Study Topic 1: Exploring sport and exercise psychology
This topic introduces you to the discipline of sport and exercise psychology and explores how you can apply the principles and skills to your own practice. You’ll also learn about how psychologists work in this field.
Study Topic 2: Sport Psychology: insights and applications
You’ll investigate key areas in sport psychology that impact on the wellbeing and performance of individuals and teams in sport and exercise environments. Topics include, anxiety, arousal, self-confidence and team work.
Study Topic 3: Psychological skills training
You’ll look in detail at some techniques that athletes, exercisers, coaches, and parents can use to manage factors such as anxiety, but also to maximise performance.
Study Topic 4: Exercise psychology: insights and applications
You’ll examine a range of concepts that align closely to exercise and health psychology such as wellbeing, mental health and exercise adherence. This topic also introduces you to the darker side of sport and negative exercise behaviours.
Study Topic 5: Special topics in sport and exercise psychology
This topic is a little different from others. You’ll choose one of two specialist topics: the psychological aspects of injury in sport and exercise; or athlete and coach burnout.
This module has no entry requirements.
However, it would be beneficial if you have some experiences of working or participating in sport and exercise.
This is an OU level 2 module that builds on study skills acquired from OU level 1 modules. We make no assumptions about your subject knowledge.
If you’re not sure you’re ready, talk to an adviser.
If you want to get a flavour of our OU level 2 module Sport and exercise psychology in action (E235), complete our free badged course, Exercise and mental health, on OpenLearn.
You’ll get help and support from an assigned tutor throughout your module.
They’ll help by:
Online tutorials run throughout the module. While they’re not compulsory, we strongly encourage you to participate. Where possible, we’ll make recordings available.
Course work includes:
You will have access to a module website, which includes:
You’ll also be provided with two printed third-party texts.
The OU strives to make all aspects of study accessible to everyone, and this Accessibility Statement outlines what studying E235 involves. You should use this information to inform your study preparations and any discussions with us about how we can meet your needs.
To find out more about what kind of support and adjustments might be available, contact us or visit our Disability support website.
Sport and exercise psychology in action (E235) starts once a year – in October.
This page describes the module that will start in October 2026.
We expect it to start for the last time in October 2027.
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