Sports coaching and the law of negligence: implications for coaching practice

The ordinary principles of the law of negligence are applicable in the context of sport, including claims brought against volunteer and professional coaches. Adopting the perspective of the coach, this article intends to raise awareness of the emerging intersection between the law of negligence and sports coaching, by utilising an interdisciplinary analysis designed to better safeguard and reassure coaches mindful of legal liability. Detailed scrutiny of two cases concerning alleged negligent coaching, with complementary discussion of some of the ethical dilemmas facing modern coaches, reinforces the legal duty and obligation of all coaches to adopt objectively reasonable and justifiable coaching practices when interacting with athletes. Problematically, since research suggests that some coaching practice may be underpinned by “entrenched legitimacy” and “uncritical inertia”, it is argued that coach education and training should place a greater emphasis on developing a coach’s awareness and understanding of the evolving legal context in which they discharge the duty of care incumbent upon them.

"IT'S JUST NOT CRICKET": ANALYZING SPORTS NEGLIGENCE IN THE UK

This presentation is about the law of professional negligence as it applies to sport. The presentation asks, paradoxically, if the skills you have as a sports coach or official might ever, on not being reasonably applied, leave you or your sport vulnerable to a claim in negligence. To inform this debate, the recent judgment in Bartlett v English Cricket Board Association of Cricket Officials (unreported, County Court (Birmingham), 27 August 2015) is critically considered. Arguably, this case is indicative of the extension of tortious liability in the UK, most notably, for officials and coaches in the context of amateur sport, essentially requiring HHJ Lopez to determine what might be termed the ‘professional liability of an amateur’.

WHAT DOES THE SOCIAL ACTION, RESPONSIBILITY & HEROISM ACT 2015 MEAN FOR SPORTS VOLUNTEERS AND NGBS?

By highlighting the context of sports coaching in the UK, this article reveals the considerable limitations of both section 1 of the Compensation Act 2006, and the Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Act 2015, in safeguarding (volunteer) coaches from negligence liability.

Burnout and turnover intentions in Australian coaches as related to organisational support and perceived control

Vision-based tracking for sports performance analysis

With the world of professional sports shifting towards employing better sport analytics, the demand for vision-based performance analysis is growing increasingly in recent years. In addition, the nature of many sports does not allow the use of any kind of sensors or other wearable markers attached to players for monitoring their performances during competitions. This provides a potential application of systematic observations such as tracking information of the players to help coaches to develop their visual skills and perceptual awareness needed to make decisions about team strategy or training plans. My PhD project is part of a bigger ongoing project between sport scientists and computer scientists involving also industry partners and sports organisations. The overall idea is to investigate the contribution technology can make to the analysis of sports performance on the example of team sports such as rugby, football or hockey. A particular focus is on vision-based tracking, so that information about the location and dynamics of the players can be gained without any additional sensors on the players. To start with, prior approaches on visual tracking are extensively reviewed and analysed. In this thesis, methods to deal with the difficulties in visual tracking to handle the target appearance changes caused by intrinsic (e.g. pose variation) and extrinsic factors, such as occlusion, are proposed. This analysis highlights the importance of the proposed visual tracking algorithms, which reflect these challenges and suggest robust and accurate frameworks to estimate the target state in a complex tracking scenario such as a sports scene, thereby facilitating the tracking process. Next, a framework for continuously tracking multiple targets is proposed. Compared to single target tracking, multi-target tracking such as tracking the players on a sports field, poses additional difficulties, namely data association, which needs to be addressed. Here, the aim is to locate all targets of interest, inferring their trajectories and deciding which observation corresponds to which target trajectory is. In this thesis, an efficient framework is proposed to handle this particular problem, especially in sport scenes, where the players of the same team tend to look similar and exhibit complex interactions and unpredictable movements resulting in matching ambiguity between the players. The presented approach is also evaluated on different sports datasets and shows promising results. Finally, information from the proposed tracking system is utilised as the basic input for further higher level performance analysis such as tactics and team formations, which can help coaches to design a better training plan. Due to the continuous nature of many team sports (e.g. soccer, hockey), it is not straightforward to infer the high-level team behaviours, such as players’ interaction. The proposed framework relies on two distinct levels of performance analysis: low-level performance analysis, such as identifying players positions on the play field, as well as a high-level analysis, where the aim is to estimate the density of player locations or detecting their possible interaction group. The related experiments show the proposed approach can effectively explore this high-level information, which has many potential applications.

COACHES, CLIMATES, “FIELD” GOALS, AND EFFICACY: A “DE-CONSTRUCTION” OF THE MASTERY-APPROACH TO COACHING AND EXAMINATION OF RELATIONSHIPS TO PSYCHOSOCIAL OUTCOMES IN A YOUTH FOOTBALL PLAYER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM.

In support of the achievement goal theory (AGT), empirical research has demonstrated psychosocial benefits of the mastery-oriented learning climate. In this study, we examined the effects of perceived coaching behaviors on various indicators of psychosocial well-being (competitive anxiety, self-esteem, perceived competence, enjoyment, and future intentions for participation), as mediated by perceptions of the coach-initiated motivational climate, achievement goal orientations and perceptions of sport-specific skills efficacy. Using a pre-post test design, 1,464 boys, ages 10-15 (M = 12.84 years, SD = 1.44), who participated in a series of 12 football skills clinics were surveyed from various locations across the United States. Using structural equation modeling (SEM) path analysis and hierarchical regression analysis, the cumulative direct and indirect effects of the perceived coaching behaviors on the psychosocial variables at post-test were parsed out to determine what types of coaching behaviors are more conducive to the positive psychosocial development of youth athletes. The study demonstrated that how coaching behaviors are perceived impacts the athletes’ perceptions of the motivational climate and achievement goal orientations, as well as self-efficacy beliefs. These effects in turn affect the athletes’ self-esteem, general competence, sport-specific competence, competitive anxiety, enjoyment, and intentions to remain involved in the sport. The findings also clarify how young boys internalize and interpret coaches’ messages through modification of achievement goal orientations and sport-specific efficacy beliefs.

Translating guidelines for the diagnosis and management of sports-related concussion into practice

Sports injuries are a significant clinical and public
health concern. There is a growing call to improve the translation of available evidence-based and expert- informed sports injury prevention interventions into sustained use in practice by physicians and others (eg, athletic trainers, coaches, and parents) who care for injured athletes. This article provides a brief overview of the current sport injury prevention implementation literature before focusing specifically on the translation of guidelines (including consensus and position statements) developed to assist physicians and others diagnose and manage athletes with sport-related concussion and the associated return-to-play decisions. The outcomes of more than 20 published studies indicate that physician, athletic trainer, coach, parent,
and athlete knowledge, use of, and compliance with sport-related concussion guidelines are limited. More concerted, coordinated, and theory-informed efforts are required to facilitate the widespread dissemination, translation, and implementation of such guidelines. An example is provided of how implementation drivers could be used to inform the development of a comprehensive, multilevel implementation strategy targeting the individual, organizational, and system-level changes necessary to support the translation of available sport-related concussion guidelines in both the clinical and sports settings.

Extreme sports as a facilitator of ecocentricity and positive life changes

Extreme sports and extreme sports participants have been most commonly explored from a negative perspective, for example the 'need to take unnecessary risks'. This study reports on findings that indicate a more positive experience. A phenomenological method was used via unstructured interviews with 15 extreme sports participants and other first hand accounts. The extreme sports included B.A.S.E. jumping, big wave surfing, extreme skiing, waterfall kayaking, extreme mountaineering and solo rope-free climbing. Results indicate that participating in activities that involve a real chance of death, fear and the realisation that nature in its extreme is far greater and more powerful than humanity triggers positive life changes, and an eco-centric standpoint.

Extreme Sports: A positive transformation in courage and humility

Extreme sports and extreme sports participants have been most commonly explored from a negative perspective, for example the “need to take unnecessary risks.” This study explored what can be learned from extreme sports about courage and humility - two positive psychology constructs. A phenomenological method was used via unstructured interviews with 15 extreme sports participants and other first hand accounts. The extreme sports included B.A.S.E. jumping, big wave surfing, extreme skiing, waterfall kayaking, extreme mountaineering and solo rope-free climbing. Results indicate that humility and courage can be deliberately sought out by participating in activities that involve a real chance of death, fear and the realisation that nature in its extreme is far greater and more powerful than humanity.

Extreme sports as a precursor to environmental sustainability

Extreme sports have unfortunately gained a reputation for being risk focused and adrenaline fuelled. This perspective has obscured the place of the natural world, making extreme athletes appear to seek to conquer, compete against or defeat natural forces. In contrast, this paper explores findings from a larger hermeneutic phenomenological study that suggests extreme sports can initiate a positive change in participants’ relationships with the natural world. Data sources include first-hand accounts of extreme sports participants such as biographies, videos, papers and journals as well as interviews with ten male and five female extreme sports participants. Reports indicate that extreme sport participants develop feelings of connection to the natural world and describe themselves as being at one with the natural world or connected through a life enhancing energy. The paper draws on theoretical perspectives in ecopsychology which suggest that feeling connected to nature leads to a desire to care for the natural world and contributes to more environmentally sustainable practices.

Analyzing the prevalence of sports-related terms among the web sites of global corporations

This research investigates the prevalence of sports-related terms among the Web sites of the world’s leading companies, the Fortune Global 500. An automated process copied about four gigabytes of textual data, around 70 million words, from their sites. The subsequent analysis revealed regional and industry differences in the distribution of sports-related terms, the popularity of tennis stars and few references to sports stars, especially in Asia.

The influence of instructions and body-scaling as constraints on decision-making processes in team sports

Team games conceptualized as dynamical systems engender a view of emergent decision-making behaviour under constraints, although specific effects of instructional and body-scaling constraints have yet to be verified empirically. For this purpose, we studied the effects of task and individual constraints on decision-making processes in basketball. Eleven experienced female players performed 350 trials in 1 vs. 1 sub-phases of basketball in which an attacker tried to perturb the stable state of a dyad formed with a defender (i.e. break the symmetry). In Experiment 1, specific instructions (neutral, risk taking or conservative) were manipulated to observe effects on emergent behaviour of the dyadic system. When attacking players were given conservative instructions, time to cross court mid-line and variability of the attacker's trajectory were significantly greater. In Experiment 2, body-scaling of participants was manipulated by creating dyads with different height relations. When attackers were considerably taller than defenders, there were fewer occurrences of symmetry-breaking. When attackers were considerably shorter than defenders, time to cross court mid-line was significantly shorter than when dyads were composed of athletes of similar height or when attackers were considerably taller than defenders. The data exemplify how interacting task and individual constraints can influence emergent decision-making processes in team ball games.

Difference-based meta-analytic procedures for between-participant and/or within-participant designs : a tutorial review for sports and exercise scientists

The aim of this paper is to provide a contemporary summary of statistical and non-statistical meta-analytic procedures that have relevance to the type of experimental designs often used by sport scientists when examining differences/change in dependent measure(s) as a result of one or more independent manipulation(s). Using worked examples from studies on observational learning in the motor behaviour literature, we adopt a random effects model and give a detailed explanation of the statistical procedures for the three types of raw score difference-based analyses applicable to between-participant, within-participant, and mixed-participant designs. Major merits and concerns associated with these quantitative procedures are identified and agreed methods are reported for minimizing biased outcomes, such as those for dealing with multiple dependent measures from single studies, design variation across studies, different metrics (i.e. raw scores and difference scores), and variations in sample size. To complement the worked examples, we summarize the general considerations required when conducting and reporting a meta-analysis, including how to deal with publication bias, what information to present regarding the primary studies, and approaches for dealing with outliers. By bringing together these statistical and non-statistical meta-analytic procedures, we provide the tools required to clarify understanding of key concepts and principles.