Volunteers’ Psychological Contracts: Exploring Experiences and Expectations Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Volunteers occupy a unique position in organisations; not paid employees yet operating within organisational structures. Volunteering is also an additional life role, managed alongside home, family and, for many, work roles. Despite such complexities, our understanding of volunteer experiences and expectations is limited. We explore the experiences of 72 volunteers using a psychological contract lens (53 volunteers before the COVID-19 pandemic and 19 volunteers during the first national lockdown). Our findings offer insights into consistency across volunteers’ expectations (i.e., of collective commitment, shared values, and organisational and peer support) and two distinct aspects of experience aligning roles to the COVID-19 imperative (i.e., motivation and role flexibility). Implications for organisations are discussed in relation to volunteer support, engagement and retention, including ‘buddy’ systems, peer support networks and open communication regarding expectations

Temporal associations between psychological climate and coach-rated team performance in sport

This study provides the first empirical test of the Practice Environment Model’s (PEM) proposition that athletes’ psychological climate perceptions are temporally related to subsequent team functioning. We examined whether daily psychological climate appraisals, collected via high-frequency digital monitoring, were associated with coach-rated team performance, and whether they offered added value beyond traditional perceived wellness assessments. Using the MIMIR platform, daily data were collected from 48 NCAA Division II athletes across men’s soccer, women’s soccer, and women’s tennis teams. A time-lagged correlational design assessed whether psychological climate or perceived wellness ratings were linked to coach-rated performance on subsequent days. Results showed that psychological climate was significantly associated with coach ratings in several contexts, with the strongest and most sustained relationships observed in women’s tennis, extending up to a five-day lag. In contrast, perceived wellness ratings showed no consistent associations with performance across teams or terms. These findings offer initial support for the PEM’s climate–performance feedback loop and identify psychological climate as a potentially valuable indicator of team functioning in applied sport. Future research should examine potential moderators and mechanisms to guide targeted climate-based interventions

Excavating the past and (re)finding myself: Why and in what ways do veterans and providers believe archaeology supports mental health and wellbeing?

Participation in heritage and archaeology is increasingly offered in the community to support mental health and wellbeing, particularly to groups experiencing mental health challenges. One such group are military veterans, who experience higher rates of mental health challenges and lower help-seeking behaviour than the general population. Since 2011 archaeological projects have been offered to veterans to support transition and mental health and wellbeing. As such, provision has become increasingly framed as an intervention, with evaluation focused on mental health and wellbeing outcomes. However, there is little understanding of why and how archaeology has a positive impact. Adopting an interpretative qualitative approach, this study explored veterans’ and providers’ perceptions of how and why archaeology supports mental health and wellbeing. Interviews with five UK veterans and four providers of UK projects were conducted and analysed using thematic analysis. Three themes were developed, each with three subthemes. Connection and belonging captured feelings of projects being a safe space, experiences of comradeship and peer support, and outcomes related to building social networks. Authenticity and purpose concerned the importance of participating authentically, contributing purposefully, and how participation was a catalyst for change. Meaning-making through the past explored how veterans make meaning through acts of remembrance, the important supporting role of professionals, and subsequent changes in wellbeing and mental health. The findings support the long-held assumption that archaeology is a powerful non-clinical intervention for veterans. In addition, potential mechanisms are suggested that must be explored further if they are to improve practice in this area

Dimensions of the functional degrees of freedom of the first serve in tennis

We examined the influence of court side and target location of the ball on the coordination and control of the tennis serve. Five male and five female experienced players performed 10 'first-serves' to centre and wide targets. 3D kinematics of the service were analysed from two frames of reference: joint position (v) and joint angle (ω) with emphasis on the qualitative aspects of movement coordination. Principal component analysis (PCA) showed in all service location conditions the first two components accounted for ~80% of the total variance with the external frame of reference (elbow and shoulder v), and internal frame of reference (ω: left and right hip) contributing most to component 1 (~60%). Arm (ω: shoulder, elbow, wrist) contributed (~20%) to component 2. Serving toward the court T centre led to more variables involved in the organization of the motion. Peak mean racket head resultant velocity was similar with each serving condition, but higher in males than females. The PCA showed that the number of components (Functional Dimensions) was less than the number of joint space physical DFs. There was quantitative variation in individual kinematic variables within- and between- players but a common qualitative kinematic structure to the coordination solution

Urban image change over two decades: comparing the images of six British urban areas 20 years apart

This paper addresses a significant lacuna in the literature of urban image by examining urban image change for multiple towns and cities over a period of two decades. It revisits and repeats a survey of UK conference and events organisers from 2000 that explored the images they hold of six British towns and cities that had all positioned themselves as key venues for business and leisure tourism meetings, events and conferences. It found both continuities and changes in the images of the towns and cities examined across this time period. Whilst the images of some towns and cities had changed significantly, others had changed very little. Further, the ways in which this audience collectively talked about these urban areas had changed little over this time. The results show that, across an extended time period, significant change in the images of urban areas can occur but that it is not inevitable. The results point to the significance of individual circumstances rather than general processes of urban image change. Our results also reveal the significance of ongoing personal experiences of cities to the processes of urban image formation and change amongst this audience

Outsider positionality:Blurring the boundaries

This chapter aims to consider the positionality of researchers who are 'allies' to the LGBTQ+ community and explore how allyship might influence the research process. There is an exploration of the importance of a reflexive approach to positionality that enables an interrogation of our entrenched thoughts and beliefs. We consider our positionality through an exploration of our own sense of identity and its influence on the research process, and pose the question: how does our positionality influence our interactions with our participants

Entangled Roots. Heritage and identity in the African ‘mesa-diasporas’: community case studies for the 2020s

The archaeology and heritage of the African Atlantic diaspora is a topic that has been extensively covered in academic literature. The experience of enslaved and freed Africans in the Americas (primarily) has been well studied through examination of plantation villages, urban settings, burial sites and freed communities. It is a mistake though to see this framework as an overarching and monolithic ‘meta-diaspora’, for within this process of forced and violent migration a more nuanced picture emerges of many hidden heritages, movement and re-movement of diasporic communities in the late colonial and post-colonial period. We argue that the hidden heritages of these ‘mesa- (meaning inside) diasporas’ demands attention. Drawing upon primary, diasporic-focused community heritage work conducted individually by the two authors, this chapter considers two distinctive case studies: the intra-American context (the Garifuna ‘Black Carib’ communities of St Vincent, Belize and New York) and returned African communities in West Africa (the Krio in Sierra Leone). These two case studies have much to offer in terms of thinking through the survival and remaking of African diasporic identities and emphasising the role of heritage-focused community tourism in the post-Covid world of the 2020s

Evaluating a behaviour change intervention to enhance athlete monitoring system engagement: Insights from elite sport

Athlete engagement with monitoring remains challenging, despite athlete monitoring systems (AMS) having the potential to enhance performance. Behaviour change frameworks may offer strategies to improve AMS engagement, but are underutilised in elite sport. This study assessed the practicality and utility of a behaviour change intervention (BCI) to improve AMS engagement. Three national team coaches (43.6 ± 10.0 years) and eight athletes (20.1 ± 2.0 years) participated in a six-month BCI to promote AMS adherence to daily monitoring using the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW). All participants completed pre and post intervention semi-structured interviews, which were thematically analysed. Adherence to monitoring declined during the intervention, but the coaches reported improved athlete awareness of monitoring. Reduced adherence could be attributed to the partial implementation of the intervention caused by coaching personnel changes. In the post intervention interviews athletes indicated there was considerable intercoach variability in AMS use and feedback to athletes, frustrating both athletes and coaches. The coaches noted athletes lacked motivation and understanding of the AMS and its purpose, further hindering engagement. Overall, the use of the BCW enabled a feasible intervention to be devised, but the BCW proved cumbersome to adapt to the swift organisational changes often experienced in elite sport. Future interventions should consider ensuring a consistent and shared framework for AMS use between staff. Behaviour change targets should have contingencies for organisational changes, and focus on key interactions such as the coach/athlete relationship, its inter-relation with AMS data, and the feedback of data between the coach, athlete and practitioner