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Visual exploratory activity and practice design: Perceptions of experienced coaches in professional football academies
Get PDFThe aim of this study was to explore: (a) football coaches’ perceptions of Visual Exploratory Activity (VEA) and (b) the practice activities designed by coaches believed to develop VEA. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine coaches who held the UEFA A or B Licence in coaching football. All coaches worked in an English professional football club’s academy and held different coaching positions. Thematic analysis of the data identified three themes: Importance of VEA, Development of VEA and Delivery of VEA (e.g., practice design, visual aids, technology and questioning). The interviews revealed that all coaches hold VEA as an integral part of player performance yet are unsure of how to develop this behaviour. They deemed that VEA should be developed at a young age to enable players to reach an elite-level of performance. Despite these views, coaches did not feel that VEA should be a particular focus on individual sessions and believed the VEA behaviour would be drawn out from practices used by coaches. There were a range of activities (N = 33) discussed by the coaches when they were asked to draw and provide examples of practices that they would use to develop VEA. The percentage of planned practices that were deemed active decision-making activities (70%) was greater compared to non-active decision-making activities (30%). This study has implications for the planning and interventions coaches place on practices to develop VEA. Future research should consider investigating the impact different types of practice have on performers’ VEA
A Premier League Football in the Community Program’s “New” Coaches and Support Systems: Practitioner Reflections
Get PDFIn the United Kingdom, many sport coaching career paths are considered to be focused on skills development, competence, and leadership within the context of performance. However, sport coaching also sits substantially within the community and youth sectors, where sport is seen to facilitate various social policy issues. Aligning nonperformance-related coaching contexts to existing formal qualifications schemes is problematic, given they frequently emphasize athlete and team performance. While an emerging base of studies examining community sports coaching exists, further insight and perspectives of in situ learning and coach support in this context are needed. Using observations, evaluation, and feedback centered on practitioner competence and confidence, and conducted over a 2-year period with 13 new community/grassroots sports coaches working with Albion in the Community (the official charity of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club), we present some of the key findings and principles that we believe underlined their practice. These principles related to how, despite the majority being appropriately qualified at national governing bodies Level 2, they generally needed additional support and expertise for their specific (community) operational environment in terms of outcomes, practice design, and challenging what was seen as a focus on providing competitive (team) environments above individual player development
Among the crows
No full text'Among the Crows' won third in the international Fish Short Story Competition 2022. Award-winning author Sarah Hall selected the winning stories from 1350 entries
International research collaborations: Lessons learned and practical tips
Get PDFThe importance of creating international research collaborations for the purpose of producing high quality educational research aimed at enhancing or promoting consistency in health care practice has become even more apparent since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. These cross-country, and sometimes cross discipline collaborations can be particularly beneficial when conducting research into aspects of clinical practice identified internationally as primary goals for patient safety improvement. An example is the commonly shared goal to improve early detection of clinical deterioration by health professionals since this continues to be reported internationally as a significant patient safety risk and suboptimal aspect of care delivery (Haddeland et al., 2018, Lee and Quinn, 2019, Goldsworthy et al., 2022, Goldsworthy et al., 2022). However, creating an effective international collaboration can be a complex process.
This paper aims to describe the process of creating a successful collaboration between research teams at universities in Canada, Australia, England, and Scotland, prior to and during a global pandemic. A description of how the team was built and sustained will be described along with the benefits, challenges, and results of this collaboration, to provide strategies on how this can be effectively achieved
Mental ill health in professional esports athletes: Prevalence and relationships
No full textThe esports industry has seen a dramatic acceleration in growth over the last decade (Himmelstein, et al., 2017), which has led to an increased interest into the science underpinning performance and player health. Although research has consistently highlighted the mental health benefits associated with sport (Stanton & Reaburn, 2014), athletes are not protected against developing mental illness and are often highlighted as most at risk during the peak of their competitive years (Allen & Hopkins, 2015). Consequently, it is important to investigate the stressors faced by athletes and the impact they may have on performance and mental health. Preliminary research in esports has argued that stress may negatively impact performance and player health (see review by Leis & Lautenbach, 2020). Inspection of the literature highlights an array of variables which are understood to influence one’s mental health, including social phobia anxiety (Sioni et al., 2017), sleep quality (Lee et al., 2021), and burnout (Madigan et al., 2019; Rice et al., 2016). However, it is clear that more investigations are warranted within the esports community. The aim of this study is to examine the predictors (i.e., stressors, sleep, social phobia anxiety, burnout) of mental ill health (general and clinical symptoms) in professional first-person shooter esports athletes. Data are currently being collected using Qualtrics survey tool. Regression analyses will be used to examine the relationships between tested variables
Peer audience effects on children’s vocal masculinity and femininity
Get PDFExisting evidence suggests that children from around the age of 8 years strategically alter their public image in accordance with known values and preferences of peers, through the self-descriptive information they convey.
However, an important but neglected aspect of this ‘self-presentation’ is the medium through which such information is communicated: the voice itself. The present study explored peer audience effects on children’s vocal
productions. Fifty-six children (26 females, aged 8–10 years) were presented with vignettes where a fictional child, matched to the participant’s age and sex, is trying to make friends with a group of same-sex peers with stereotypically masculine or feminine interests (rugby and ballet, respectively).
Participants were asked to impersonate the child in that situation and, as the child, to read out loud masculine, feminine and gender-neutral self-descriptive statements to these hypothetical audiences. They also had to decide which of those self-descriptive statements would be most helpful for making friends. In line with previous research, boys and girls preferentially selected masculine or feminine self-descriptive statements depending on the audience interests. Crucially, acoustic analyses of fundamental frequency and formant frequency spacing revealed that children also spontaneously altered their vocal productions: they feminized their voices when speaking to members of the ballet club, while they masculinized their voices when speaking to members of the rugby club. Both sexes also feminized their voices when uttering feminine sentences, compared to when uttering masculine and gender-neutral sentences. Implications for the hitherto neglected role of acoustic qualities of children’s vocal behaviour in peer interactions are discussed
What the research tells us about autism and bilingualism
Get PDFThis review of the literature considers a growing body of research evidence on autism and bilingualism that has identified how bilingual exposure for children and young people with autism can have a positive impact on their communication and language development. While much of the research on autism and bilingualism has originated in the US and Canada, the need to address this topic in UK schools has been emerging in recent years. According to the Special Educational Needs in England statistics (Department for Education, 2020) there has been a marked increase in the numbers of bilingual children on the autism spectrum in our classrooms in the last 5 years and over 20,000 children with autism who have a first language other than English. This has led to practitioners and parents wanting guidance about how best to support a child or young person who has a language impairment or delay associated with a diagnosis of autism and is exposed to more than one language at school and in their home environment or community
Peer audience effects on children's vocal masculinity and femininity
Get PDFExisting evidence suggests that children from around the age of 8 years strategically alter their public image in accordance with known values and preferences of peers, through the self-descriptive information they convey. However, an important but neglected aspect of this 'self-presentation' is the medium through which such information is communicated: the voice itself. The present study explored peer audience effects on children's vocal productions. Fifty-six children (26 females, aged 8-10 years) were presented with vignettes where a fictional child, matched to the participant's age and sex, is trying to make friends with a group of same-sex peers with stereotypically masculine or feminine interests (rugby and ballet, respectively). Participants were asked to impersonate the child in that situation and, as the child, to read out loud masculine, feminine and gender-neutral self-descriptive statements to these hypothetical audiences. They also had to decide which of those self-descriptive statements would be most helpful for making friends. In line with previous research, boys and girls preferentially selected masculine or feminine self-descriptive statements depending on the audience interests. Crucially, acoustic analyses of fundamental frequency and formant frequency spacing revealed that children also spontaneously altered their vocal productions: they feminized their voices when speaking to members of the ballet club, while they masculinized their voices when speaking to members of the rugby club. Both sexes also feminized their voices when uttering feminine sentences, compared to when uttering masculine and gender-neutral sentences. Implications for the hitherto neglected role of acoustic qualities of children's vocal behaviour in peer interactions are discussed. This article is part of the theme issue 'Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part II)'
In the Picture: Representations of Librarianship in Children’s Picture Books Published in the UK between 1994-2014
Get PDFThis study examines representations of librarianship in children’s picture books published recently in the UK. Representations of libraries and librarians have been gathered from both the narratives and illustrations in a set of eight children’s picture books published in the UK between 1994 and 2014 using a novel data-gathering framework. It was found that depictions of libraries and librarians have been more favorable in the present century than they were in the last. Even when stereotypical aspects were detected, they did not produce a negative view of the profession, and no correlation was found between stereotyping and the overall view of librarians. The textual analysis corroborated literature review findings of a lack in differentiation between professional and para-professional staff, which may be causing misunderstanding of the level of skills and knowledge that librarians possess
Accelerated Diagnosis of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)—Computer Vision with Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs)
Get PDFEarly detection and diagnosis of COVID-19, as well as the exact separation of non-COVID-19 cases in a non-invasive manner in the earliest stages of the disease, are critical concerns in the current COVID-19 pandemic. Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based models offer a remarkable capacity for providing an accurate and efficient system for the detection and diagnosis of COVID-19. Due to the limited availability of RT-PCR (Reverse transcription-polymerase Chain Reaction) tests in developing countries, imaging-based techniques could offer an alternative and affordable solution to detect COVID-19 symptoms. This paper reviewed the current CNN-based approaches and investigated a custom-designed CNN method to detect COVID-19 symptoms from CT (Computed Tomography) chest scan images. This study demonstrated an integrated method to accelerate the process of classifying CT scan images. In order to improve the computational time, a hardware-based acceleration method was investigated and implemented on a reconfigurable platform (FPGA). Experimental results highlight the difference between various approximations of the design, providing a range of design options corresponding to both software and hardware. The FPGA-based implementation involved a reduced pre-processed feature vector for the classification task, which is a unique advantage of this particular application. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method, results from the CPU-based classification and the FPGA were measured separately and compared retrospectively