Sport Intervention Research Articles

Physically active at school–It's child's play. The Sydney Playground Project

Introduction: This research was part of a larger study known as the Sydney Playground Project (SPP), which aims to increase physical activity and social skills in primary school children by means of a low-cost innovative playground intervention. For many children pure sports interventions are not the answer, hence this study engaged children's playful nature to promote physical activity and social interactions through play. The purpose of this part of the study was to study the effect of the intervention on physical activity.

The Study of Crew Physical and Psychological Evaluation and Sports Intervention Expert System

The crew health evaluation model based on probability neural network and the sports items intervention expert system established in the paper. The system can track and guide n the crew physical and psychological health status at sea in real time. The research work has important practical significance and great practical value, which may enhance the crew physical and psychological health, improve work efficiency, promote the harmony and stability of the ship small environment, maintain the normal life order and ensure safety at sea.

Organizational team sport as a diversity management intervention: A qualitative study

An increasing number of organizations in South Africa are introducing formal organizational team sport activities, without any scientific knowledge on whether participation in these activities holds benefits for the management of diversity in the organization. The purpose of this research was to identify the indicators of an organizational team sport intervention that contributes to the effective management of a diverse workforce. The qualitative exploratory study was conducted among 63 sport participants of 9 financial organizations that participate in organizational team sport. The data were collected by means of focus group interviews. The results indicate that organizational team sport interventions hold benefits such as competitiveness, same goals, open communication, friends, trust and respect, learn from one another, commitment, and less stereotyping. The benefits that organizational team sport interventions hold for the company are better client service, employees work in harmony, they are healthier and motivated, they have good interpersonal relationships, and the company is more profitable and can make social investments. Therefore, organizational team sport contributes towards an organization’s requirements for an effective workforce. The findings of this study contribute valuable new knowledge to the literature on organizational team sport as an intervention for diversity management. Key words: Diversity management, organizational team sport, teams, goal, commitment, trust, respect, communication, friends.

Mindfulness to Enhance Athletic Performance: Theoretical Considerations and Possible Impact Mechanisms

Top athletes face various challenges in their career on and off the sports field. Sport psychologists teach techniques to help athletes to cope with these challenges. Over the last 30 years, the techniques used stem mainly from psychological skills training (PST), which is influenced mainly from cognitive-behavioral theories. Recently, interest in mindfulness-based interventions has increased in sport psychology. This article identifies the limits of PST and presents theoretical considerations how mindfulness-based interventions can amend PST. Further, it addresses in what form and by what mechanisms athletes could benefit. In reviewing current mindfulness literature, we conclude that it is important to distinguish between mindfulness practice and dispositional mindfulness. Mindfulness practice means the methods through which mindfulness is fostered, whereas dispositional mindfulness describes the tendency to be mindful in everyday life. In our conceptualization, we differ between three interwoven facets of mindfulness practice (intention, attention, and attitude), which are associated with six components of dispositional mindfulness. We consider that athletes with a higher degree in mindfulness practice and dispositional mindfulness will enhance the level of several required psychological skills through various impact mechanisms. Based on theoretical considerations, we suggest bare attention, experiential acceptance, values clarifications, self-regulation/negative emotion regulation, clarity about one’s internal life, exposure, flexibility, non-attachment, and rumination as possible impact mechanisms. A greater knowledge of the conceptualization of mindfulness and its impact on psychological skills could develop and improve the effectiveness of mindfulness based interventions in sports.

Good practices and health policy analysis in European sports stadia: results from the 'Healthy Stadia' project

Sport plays an important role within society and sports stadia provide significant settings for public health strategies. In addition to being places of mass gathering, stadia are often located in less affluent areas and are traditionally attended by 'harder to reach' communities. Unfortunately sports stadia and the clubs they host are rarely perceived as places that promote healthy lifestyles. Fast food, alcohol and tobacco are commonly advertized, served and consumed during sports games giving the spectators and TV fans contradictory messages concerning healthy choices. As part of a wider programme of work part-funded by the European Union, a study was therefore designed to explore current 'good practice' relating to positive health interventions in sports stadia across a number of European countries. Using a specially designed questionnaire, information about health policies and good practices relating to food offerings in stadia, physical activity promotion among local communities, tobacco policy, positive mental health initiatives, environmental sustainability practices and social responsibility policies were collected in 10 European countries (England and Northern Ireland, Finland, Georgia, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Spain and Sweden) involving 88 stadia. The audit results show that stadia health policies differ considerably between specific countries and sports. Based on the literature analysed, the examples of good practices collected through the study, and the subsequent instigation of a European Healthy Stadia Network, it shows that there is considerable potential for stadia to become health promoting settings.

Where should community Australian Football invest in injury prevention? A review of over 30 years of injury reports

Introduction: Comprehensive epidemiological information about injuries is needed to identify and prioritize efforts to develop and implement injury prevention interventions in sport. While previous research has mainly focused on injuries in elite Australian Football, more recent studies have described injuries in community Australian Football players. This talk will present the first compilation of information about the profile of community Australian Football injuries in order to identify the most commonly injured body regions, natures and mechanisms of injury experienced by the largest participation group in this sport.

Effective physical education and school sport: A systematic review of physical education and school sport interventions targeting physical activity, movement skills and enjoyment of physical activity

Effective physical education and school sport: A systematic review of physical education and school sport interventions targeting physical activity, movement skills and enjoyment of physical activity

Biofeedback and Neurofeedback in Sports

There is great promise in the technology of biofeedback for the field of sport psychology. However, very little empirical research has been conducted that speaks to the efficacy of psychophysiological intervention in sport. The general aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of different training protocols designed to teach cognitive and emotional self-regulation and improve athlete performance on sport-specific tasks. Results of these experiments demonstrated athlete mastery of self-regulation skills and improvement in sport performance.

A systematic review of the effectiveness of physical education and school sport interventions targeting physical activity, movement skills and enjoyment of physical activity

This article presents a systematic review of published literature on the effectiveness of physical education in promoting participation in physical activity, enjoyment of physical activity and movement skill proficiency in children and adolescents. The review utilized a literature search, specifically publications listed in Ovid, A+ Education, ERIC, Sports Discus, Science Direct, PsychInfo from 1990 to June 2010. The literature search yielded 27,410 potentially relevant publications. Twenty-three articles met the inclusion criteria established for this review and applied by three independent reviewers. Articles were rated independently by three reviewers using a 10-item methodological quality scale derived from the CONSORT 2010 statement. The results of the review detail the nature, scope and focus of intervention strategies reported, and reported outcomes of interventions. The most effective strategies to increase children’s levels of physical activity and improve movement skills in physical education were direct instruction teaching methods and providing teachers with sufficient and ongoing professional development in using these physical education (PE) instruction methods. However, the review revealed a lack of high quality evaluations and statistical power to draw conclusions concerning the effectiveness of interventions conducted in physical education and school sport to improve enjoyment outcomes. It is argued that adequately powered interventions that target movement skills in secondary schools and evaluate school sport curriculum are urgently needed.

The stimulation of sports participation in deprived communities: evidence from British coalfields areas

This article uses evidence from a sport initiative by a UK non-sport agency, the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, to demonstrate what kinds of sport interventions work in deprived areas and why. Although constrained by the short time period covered by the evaluation of eight pilot models, the evidence of outputs, inputs, value for money and processes involved does lead to conclusions that informed a national roll-out of the programme. In particular, it highlights critical success factors and critical risk factors and it enables four models to be selected as having a greater chance of long-term success.

Tackling risk compensation – a psycho-physical approach to measuring behaviour change

BackgroundRisk compensation theory has been used to explain why safety interventions in sport, such as personal protective equipment, are not as successful as predicted. As an example, it has been...

Corporatising Sport, Gender and Development: postcolonial IR feminisms, transnational private governance and global corporate social engagement

The ‘Girl Effect’ is a growing but understudied movement that assumes girls are catalysts capable of bringing social and economic change for their families, communities and countries. The evolving discourse associated with this movement holds profound implications for development programmes that focus on girls and use sport and physical activity to promote gender equality, challenge gender norms, and teach confidence and leadership skills. Increasingly sport, gender and development (sgd) interventions are funded and implemented by multinational corporations (mncs) as part of the mounting portfolio of corporate social responsibility (csr) initiatives in international development. Drawing on postcolonial feminist ir theory and recent literature on transnational private governance, this article considers how an mnc headquartered in the global North that funds a sgd programme informed by the ‘Girl Eeffect’ movement in the Two-Thirds World is implicated in the postcolonial contexts in which it operates. Qualitative research methods were used, including interviews with mnc csr staff members. The findings reveal three themes that speak to the colonial residue within corporate-funded sgd interventions: the power of brand authority; the importance of ‘authentic’ subaltern stories; and the politics of the ‘global’ sisterhood enmeshed in saving ‘distant’ others. The implications of these findings for sgd are discussed in terms of postcolonial feminist approaches to studying sport for development and peace more broadly.

Teaching and learning social values: experience of resolution of conflicts in the classroom of physical education across the learning of social skills

The main aim of this study has been the application of a sport and social program intervention to solve the daily problems of conviviality in the classroom of physical education, based on the teaching and learning of social values, attitudes and social skills. 24 children between 9-12 years of Guadix (Granada) have taken part in this study, learning social values that allow them to improve the social relations with their mates. In the data collection of information, three instruments were used; an initial and final sociogram (pre-post) was carried out with the objective of know the social relations of the group; two group interviews, in which the students talked about their learning process and the diary of the teacher, in which the teacher analyzed the program and the advance of the students. The results of three used instruments were compared, the analysis of data shows that there had been considerable changes in the attitude of the students, therefore the personal conflicts that were frequent to the beginning of the research, were diminishing in a gradual way along the experience. The students and the teacher showed their satisfaction for the improvement of their social skills and relationships through the sport motor learning.

The Role of Confidence Profiling in Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions in Sport

This study examined the applicability of confidence profiling to the development of an individualized intervention designed in accordance with Murphy and Murphy’s (1992) eight step cognitive-behavioral model. The case study design illustrated the potential uses and benefits of confidence profiling when developing an athlete driven intervention to enhance the sport confidence of a female swimmer. Specifically, it showed how confidence profiling can act as an applied measure to accurately assess sport confidence from the athlete’s own perspective, provide the basis of an intervention targeted toward the athlete’s individual confidence needs, and provide feedback to the sport psychologist concerning the effectiveness of the intervention. A postintervention interview with the athlete highlighted the usefulness of the confidence profiling process. Specifically, the profiling process helped to raise the athlete’s awareness of the factors that facilitated and debilitated her sport confidence. Furthermore, the athlete reported feeling more confident and very satisfied with the mental skills training, which she perceived resulted in performance gains.

Title IX: Consequences for Gender Relations in Sport

Legal interventions have succeeded in creating new opportunities for female athletes, but some argue that this is at the expense of opportunities for male athletes. In this review, we examine the consequences of a particular legal intervention in sport, the US education law Title IX, for female athletes, male athletes, and the construction of gender. Research indicates that sport participation is linked to important attainment outcomes, such as completing education and receiving higher salaries, for both male and female athletes. In addition, playing sports has several protective effects for women’s and girls’ mental and physical health. While positive effects for male athletes are important, courts’ interpretations of Title IX do not require the elimination of men’s opportunities but also do not protect those opportunities in current enforcement. Legal interventions that assure female sports participation also challenge the ways sport is used to create and reproduce definitions of masculinity, exposing dangerous emphases on toughness, aggressiveness, and heterosexual conquest that are damaging to both female and male athletes.

Critical left-realism and sport interventions in divided societies

What, if any, is the value of sport to processes of peace and reconciliation? After introducing the largely rhetorical arguments for and against the value of using sport as a vehicle to promote peace building in divided societies, this article makes a more detailed and forensic examination of the evidence based on: the role played by sport in South Africa before and after apartheid; and second, drawing upon the author’s own experiences garnered over more than two decades of conducting research and leading sport-based intervention initiatives in Northern Ireland and Israel. The article argues that sport is intrinsically value neutral and under carefully managed circumstances it can make a positive if modest contribution to peace building. The mobilization of an engaged sociological imagination in the context of a broader human rights agenda is central to this contribution. Drawing upon notions of pragmatism, left realism and praxis, the article concludes by presenting a ‘ripple effect’ model that illustrates the circumstances under which sport can make a difference in the promotion of social justice and human rights in deeply divided societies.

Policy, sport and integration: the case of talented ethnic minority players in Danish football clubs

Increased public funding, more governmental involvement and an emphasis on the instrumental values of physical activities have in general become characteristic of Western nations' policies towards sport. Denmark is, however, a little different in that there is still little political intervention in sport, although sports clubs do get economic support and are seen as having the potential to solve crucial social issues. The purpose of this article is to analyse and discuss the ways in which the political assumption that sport can enhance social integration is reflected in the practical governance of integration issues in particular in sports clubs. The article is based on a local field study in which we interviewed 10 talented football players with ethnic minority backgrounds and eight coaches and club leaders from six different football clubs. Distinguishing between integration and assimilation, the analysis shows that coaches (and the Danish football governing bodies) employ a strategy of integration towards ethnic minority players' different preferences for food and clothing. However, in the daily practice of football the clubs have an implicit strategy of assimilation. The coaches attempt to treat everyone the same (no matter the ethnicity and background of the players). Inspired by anthropological studies this is analysed as a common way to downplay differences between the members of a society (or in this case a football team and club) and to enhance instead an ‘imagined sameness’ that is central to the national self-understanding in Nordic countries. This leads us to discuss a possible change of strategy for elite sports clubs to develop explicit policies for their work with ethnic minorities.

Effects of exercise on behavior and peripheral blood lymphocyte apoptosis in a rat model of chronic fatigue syndrome

This study examined the effects of exercise on behavior and peripheral blood leukocyte apoptosis in a rat model of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Thirty-six healthy male Sprague-Dawley rats were equally randomized into 3 groups: the control group, CFS model group and the exercise group in terms of body weight. A total of 25 rats entered the final statistical analysis due to 11 deaths during the study. CFS model was established by subjecting the rats in CFS model group and exercise group to electric shock, chronic restraint stress and cold water swim. Besides, rats in the exercise group took running wheel exercise. After a week of conditioning feeding, model construction and running wheel exercise were performed simultaneously, and lasted for 23 consecutive days. The behavior experiments, including running wheel exercise, open-field test, tail suspension test and Morris water maze test, were conducted, either before or after the model establishment. Rats were sacrificed and peripheral blood was obtained for the assessment of lymphocyte apoptosis index by flow cytometry (FCM). It was found that as compared with those in the control group, the weight of the rats was decreased obviously (P<0.01), the mobility time in the open-field and the tail suspension tests was shortened significantly (P<0.01), the time to locate the platform was enhanced (P<0.01) and the cell apoptosis index was increased substantially (P<0.01) in the CSF model group. Meanwhile, in comparison to the model group, the behavior in the open-field and the tail suspension tests was improved significantly (P<0.05), and the apoptosis index decreased remarkably (P<0.01) in the exercise group. It is concluded that sport intervention can prevent lymphocyte apoptosis and improve animal behavior rather than the memory.

The influence of diets and sports intervention to the elderly patients with hyperlipemia

Objective To investigate the influence of diets and sports intervention to the elderly patients with hyperlipemia. Methods One hundred and thirty casos of hyperlipidemia patients were discovered by routine healthy examination and were divided into interventional group (66eases) and control group (64 cases) . With the same drugs treatment, the patients in group I were given designed diets and action plan to regulate hyperlipemia. After 6 months the levels of TG, TC, BMI, BP and the condition of diets and action were evaluated. Results There was no difference between the two groups before test. After interference, the average calories taking and the levels of TG, TC, BMI, BP in interventional group were decreased than before and those in control group, the amount of motion per week and common health situation scores were rised Conclusions Diets and sports intervene can improve health of the patients with hyperlipemia. Key words: Hyperlipemia; Diets and sports intervention

The effect of technological interventions in sport : do they work?

The effect of technological interventions in sport : do they work?