Search Results

The present study sought to address 2 limitations of previous athlete-leadership research: (a) Researchers have predominantly examined the shared nature of athlete leadership using aggregated approaches, which has limited our ability to examine differences in the degree of sharedness between teams, and (b) the limited availability of research related to dyadic predictors (i.e., qualities of the relation between 2 individuals) of athlete leadership. Therefore, social-network analysis was used to examine athlete leadership across multiple levels (i.e., individual, dyadic, and network) in 4 competitive female youth soccer teams (N = 68). Findings demonstrated differences in the degree to which athlete leadership was shared between the teams. Furthermore, multiple-regression quadratic-assignment procedures showed that skill nomination and formal leadership status were significant predictors of how often participants reported looking to their teammates for leadership.

In line with trends in sport management education that have encouraged a transition from traditional forms of passive and depersonalized learning to active and motivated learning, this essay draws on theoretical and applied insight to provide sport management educators with actionable information related to gamification. In educational contexts, gamification involves using game elements such as narratives, teams, and badges in the classroom as a way to support students’ intrinsic motivation and basic psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, relatedness). This essay presents a case for gamification as a high-impact pedagogical approach that can help sport management educators replicate the global, complicated, and dynamic nature of the sport industry, thus creating more authentic, engaging, and influential experiences for students. Accordingly, this essay outlines gamification in education, discusses game elements and design, and provides a thorough description of a gamified sport psychology course. It concludes with future considerations and key takeaways for sport management educators.

The purpose of the current study was to develop, implement, and evaluate a season-long athlete leadership development program. Participants were 27 female varsity athletes who participated in four leadership workshops throughout the season, each 1 hr in duration. All of the participants completed inventories measuring leadership behaviors, cohesion, communication, athlete satisfaction, and peer motivational climate. Overall, the results showed significant differences in regards to leadership behaviors, athlete satisfaction, and peer motivational climate from pre- to postintervention. Further, follow-up focus groups were also conducted to assess the social validity of the leadership development program. These focus groups revealed important insight into program structure, influence of the program, leadership challenges, and suggestions for future improvements. These findings provide researchers, sport psychology consultants, and coaches with important information regarding the effectiveness of this athlete leadership development program in targeting human and social capital development.

The sport literature yields little information concerning the available methods or processes coaches can use to obtain feedback about their coaching. This is unfortunate given that evaluative feedback about one’s coaching performance is useful in terms of providing direction for professional coach development (Mallett & Côté, 2006). As a follow-up to O’Boyle (2014), the purpose of this Best Practices paper is to offer a sample protocol for employing a 360-degree feedback system for coaches working in high performance settings. We draw on a review of the coach evaluation and 360-degree feedback literature, along with insights shared from Canadian intercollegiate head coaches to highlight some of the potential benefits and challenges of implementing a 360-degree feedback system in sport. We then suggest ‘best practices’ for effectively integrating this appraisal system and provide an example coach report to illustrate how feedback would be provided to a coach following a 360-degree feedback protocol. It is our hope that this sample protocol paper will encourage coaches, athletic directors, and other sport administrators to integrate comprehensive coach feedback practices in their sporting programs.