Wearable Technology in Football Further Education Settings in the United Kingdom

The prevalence of wearable technology in association football (or soccer) has been prominent in top professional teams for over a decade and is employed by coaches and sport science practitioners to quantify and help improve the performance of either the individual player or team. Educational settings have also witnessed an exponential rise in the application of wearable technology in formal learning environments. The increased number of football industry related qualifications offered by Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) establishments has probably been the driver for this expansion. There is, however, a dearth of research on the educational application of wearable technology in FE and HE. There is also some conjecture as to whether the current wearable technology products on the market, are designed for an educational purpose. The aim therefore of this professional doctorate project was to investigate the use of wearable technology in football related further and higher education settings, and to develop a wearable technology product tool that was deemed appropriate for a FE environment. Thus, the aim of Study 1 (Chapter 4) was to establish the extent, wearable technology was being used in FE and HE environments. Using a mixed-method research design the initial survey established the type of technology and how they were being employed in FE and HE settings. The study identified that Global Positioning System (GPS) vests and Heart rate chest strap are the most prominent wearable technology. Qualitative findings suggested there are pedagogic challenges and barriers to using this kind of technology, a lack of understanding, and poor feedback and communication. Having established some preliminary findings Study 2 (Chapter 5) explored these barriers and challenges within contextualised settings in more depth. It identified a disconnect between coaching performance and coaching education, highlighting a lack of knowledge surrounding the uses and capabilities of wearable technology used in football related FE settings. Furthermore, participant responses suggested the current wearable technology products on the market were not fit for educational purposes. By designing and developing (Study 3) a bespoke wearable technology product (Chapter 6) provided an industry-specific solution to the issues presented in Chapter 5. Adopting a unique collaboration between academia and industry, recruiting experts in various fields, thus enabled the design and development of a novel bespoke system, including the hardware and software requirements reported in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5. Since the purpose of Study 3 was the development of the wearable technology hardware and software, the aim of Study 4 (Chapter 7) was to evaluate the product and system in an applied real-world setting. Findings suggest student engagement increased, and attainment improved. Additionally, it also demonstrated a more accessible and user-friendly platform for use in FE by eliminating technological features captured in Chapter 5. By using a mobile application and cloud-based system that enabled cross pollination to other curriculum areas suggested college staff and coaches were becoming more engaged with wearable technology. Evidence also suggested students displayed attributes of independent learning and demonstrated engagement outside of formal learning environments. In summary, the research data and product development presented in this thesis suggest the wearable technology system is fit for purpose and can be deployed in FE environments. From a practitioner perspective, this doctoral thesis has also laid the foundations for education, football, and wearable technology communities the impetus to work in collaboration. This doctoral thesis demonstrates that it is possible for academia, business and commercial enterprise to work collectively to elucidate and solve real world industry problem

Athlete Monitoring in Rugby League: a focus on the conceptualisation, implementation and utilisation of a wellness questionnaire.

Wellness questionnaires are often used to monitor athletes to gain an understanding of the responses to training and gameplay. This thesis presents original information concerning the conceptualisation, implementation and use of wellness questionnaires with a focus on the sport of rugby league. The overall aim of the thesis was to investigate the use and implementation of a wellness questionnaire with the goal of developing a framework for successful implementation. Whilst wellness questionnaires appear to be a popular method for evaluating the response to training and readiness to perform, there are limited details on the type of questionnaires used by practitioners. Study 1 investigated the use and implementation of current wellness questionnaires across a range of high- performance sports. The study examined if there is commonality amongst the use of wellness questionnaires with regard to customised designs, scales, items and the levels of implementation achieved. Based on a review of the literature and practical experience of the research team, an online survey was constructed consisting of 23 questions. 122 participants recruited through the network of the research team completed the survey. Analysis of the responses indicated that customised wellness questionnaires were prevalent and used by the majority of respondents (74%) each training day. These questionnaires differed in the types of scale, items and analysis techniques used. With regard to implementation, the majority reported completion rates above 75%. However, issues associated with the questionnaire, team resources, issuing reminders and generating buy-in were evident. In a follow up to the main survey, practitioners identified five key themes needed for successful implementation which were labelled the Implementation Outcomes. These outcomes can be used to evaluate the success of the implementation and use of wellness questionnaires. Following on from study 1 it was necessary to give an in-depth focus on the implementation and use of wellness questionnaires within a rugby league context. Previous research has identified factors associated with the measure and the social environment that influence questionnaire use in a range of different sports (Saw, Main, & Gastin, 2015b). Therefore, study 2 interviewed players and staff (n = 20) within a European Super League team to examine the factors that were relevant within their context. Reported Implementation Factors were identified across the organisation (e.g. team resources), the measure (e.g. mode and accessibility of the wellness questionnaire), inter-personal (e.g. reminders), and individual level (e.g. player buy-in). The factors were consistent with previous research into implementation and several novel higher order factors were identified residing within the organisation (context, process, personalisation and coaching staff). Twenty-three original lower order themes specific to a rugby league environment were identified. Implementation factors manifested across data collection, analysis and decision-making. The findings lend support to the use of a social ecological model to identify factors influencing wellness questionnaire use in rugby league. The customised wellness questionnaires which have been used within rugby league research give limited insight into the questionnaire development and validation. No wellness questionnaire exists that has been thoroughly validated and tested within a rugby league environment. Study 3 subsequently sought to develop and validate a new wellness questionnaire for use in rugby league. This study involved four phases of development to examine face, content and concurrent validity in addition to the reliability of the questionnaire. The construction of the new questionnaire also concerned the appraisal as to the ecological fit of using wellness questionnaires within the host setting. Taking into account the findings of studies 1 and 2, consideration was given to implementation in the construction of the questionnaire. Aligned with current guidelines, assessments were made to determine the purpose of using the wellness questionnaire, if there was buy-in from the stakeholders and if it was feasible to implement. The newly developed 9-item wellness questionnaire was deemed valid, reliable and acceptable to use within rugby league environments. The study comprehensively demonstrates the process of developing and validating a wellness questionnaire above and beyond other previously used and published questionnaires. Study 4 used the newly developed questionnaire to assess player wellness in conjunction with external and internal load in a European Super League team. There is a lack of normative wellness data, including details on how to monitor, analyse and interpret this data at team and individual levels. Players completed a wellness questionnaire across 68 consecutive days of the rugby league season (Super 8s to Grand Final). Global positioning system data and session rating of perceived exertion was recorded for training and games. Results indicate the new wellness questionnaire is sensitive to detect change and identifies a high variation in wellness data the day after game-play. This questionnaire is recommended to collect data at matchdays +1, +3, +4, and +6. Results support the findings of previous studies which suggest that it takes at least 4 days post-game to recover to pre-game levels of wellness. Wellness questionnaires should be used in conjunction with training load data and results found that post-game wellness strongly correlated with the number of tackles in rugby league games, r(6) = 0.80 p= 0.17. Furthermore, when tackles were combined with high speed running metres wellness was significantly predicted post-game, F(2, 5) = 17.760, p = .005, adj. R2 = .83. Wellness scores showed high inter and intra individual variability. The study provides case study examples analysing team and individual player wellness, suggesting the use of z- scores and visualisations using statistical process control charts and radar plots. The findings of this thesis lend support to the use of wellness questionnaires in rugby league and high- performance sport, providing they are appropriately developed, validated and implemented. The final written chapter presents a conceptual model named the Successful Implementation Framework which aims to guide practitioner implementation of wellness questionnaires. The framework brings together aspects established in this thesis including the Implementation Considerations (study 3), Implementation Areas (study 2), Implementation Factors (study 2), Implementation Outcomes (study 1) and recommendations for use (study 4)

The Dialectics of Power and Dissent: A Study of the U.S. Army\u27s Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program

This research is a study of power in contemporary American society which calls into question the assumptions of openness and permeability so cherished by the pluralists. Within a power framework, we explore the functional realities of government that illuminate why some powerful interests manage to prevail with some consistency, while the broad public is assigned to a lesser task. The context for the study is the U.S. Army\u27s $ 11 billion dollar Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program (CSDP). The Army\u27s decision to use on-site incineration for the destruction of the stockpile ignited a social movement in opposition. Employing participant observation and in-depth interviews, we analyze the citizen-led opposition movement that began at the Lexingtron-Bluegrass Army Depot (LBAD) in Kentucky, and the ambiguous role of the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) regulatory process. Using the \u27three dimensions of power\u27 framework formulated by Steven Lukes (1974) and extended by Gaventa (1980), and Bachrach and Baratz (1974), we uncovered patterns of power (i.e., hidden faces of power ) that allowed the Army to exploit some issues and suppress others while all the time urging that citizens abide by the process. This was accomplished chiefly through the \u27mobilization of bias\u27, and propped up by a heavily-financed public relations campaign which emanates from the Pentagon. We conclude with some recommendations for what can be done to revitalize our moribund democracy

Application of Technologies for Temporary Structures during the Design and Construction Phases

The development of technologies such as Building Information Modeling (BIM), light detection and ranging (lidar), and sensor-based systems poses new opportunities for researchers to rethink how construction safety and health can be approached during the design, planning, and construction phases of a project. Nevertheless, the majority of the technology applications developed to date have focused on permanent structures rather than temporary structures. Due to the “temporary” nature of temporary structures, stakeholders might easily underestimate their importance and not pay adequate attention to them in comparison with permanent works. But temporary structures are extensively used, associated with high rates of injuries and fatalities, and nearly three-fourths of the construction workers in the US perform construction activities on or near temporary structures. There are considerable needs to improve the performance of temporary structures. The overarching goal of this research is to advance the body of knowledge and make practical contributions to the integration of temporary structures with advanced technologies. Specifically, this research explores the identification of the desires and needs of adopting technologies in temporary structures, and the development of tools to improve the quality of temporary structures in the design and construction phases of a construction project. To attain the research goal, the study firstly investigated the current design and inspection practices for temporary structures, as well as professionals’ viewpoints of applying technologies on temporary structures by surveying professionals who are familiar with temporary structures and construction technologies. Based on the results of this first step, the study proposed tools to remedy the current deficiencies in design and inspection quality of temporary structures discovered. The type of temporary structure targeted in the research is concrete formwork systems, especially formwork for concrete slabs. For the design and planning phases, a BIM plug-in was developed in Revit using C# to achieve automation in designing and modeling temporary structures with safety considerations. For the construction phase, a wireless sensor-based formwork monitoring system was proposed and developed to improve the inspection quality during concrete placement. The present research contributes to the body of knowledge by identifying the needs and desires of using technologies in temporary structures, as well as the technology selection criteria and areas of improvement for temporary structures, and develops practical tools to improve the design and inspection quality of temporary structures

Wedding belles and enslaved brides: Louisiana plantation weddings in fact, fiction and folklore

Wedding Belles and Enslaved Brides: Louisiana Plantation Weddings in Fact, Fiction and Folklore Dissertation directed by Professor John Wharton Lowe, Robert Penn Warren Professor of English Pages in dissertation, 380, Words in Abstract, 234 Abstract Along with rites of passage marking birth and death, wedding rituals played an important role in ordering social life on antebellum Louisiana plantations, not only for elite white families but also for the enslaved. Louisiana women\u27s autobiographical accounts of plantation weddings yield considerable insights on the importance of weddings for Louisiana plantation women before, and especially during, the Civil War. Moreover, information contained within the Louisiana Writers\u27 Project narratives reveal various types of wedding ritual used to unite the enslaved on Louisiana plantations despite laws and codes that prohibited slave unions. In contrast to these historical accounts, plantation weddings in the fictional imagination reveal that the figure of the bride reflects careful authorial negotiation of racialized and gendered ideologies. Fictional images found in a wide-ranging collection of texts portray the Louisiana plantation wedding as a site of struggle by white or black brides against racial and patriarchal constraints. Currently, heritage tourism perpetuates notions of whiteness on Louisiana plantations, fostering romantic nostalgia of the past and adaptation of that past into the present. For contemporary brides, choosing a Louisiana plantation as a wedding venue evokes stereotyical notions of the Old South in terms of gendered femininity. Yet, there is some indication that previously entrenched notions of racial and class hierarchies are slowly being overturned. This project begins with a reenacted wedding at Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site, providing a discursive framework for examining the manner in which the white southern belle or the enslaved bride and her wedding on a Louisiana plantation recycle through historical, fictional and contemporary productions

To the workplace and back : a dilemma of professional women in Malaysia

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Pride and prejudice : Canadian intellectuals confront the United States, 1891-1945

This study compares how English and French Canadian intellectuals viewed American society from 1891 to 1945. During the period under study, the Dominion experienced accelerated industrialization and urbanization, massive immigration, technological change, and the rise of mass culture. To the nation's intellectuals, many of these changes found their source and their very embodiment in the United States. America, it was argued, was the quintessence of modernity, having embraced, among other things, secularism, democracy, mass culture, and industrial capitalism.In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Canadian hostility to the United States and continental integration was expressed in two conservative discourses: that of English Canadian imperialism and French Canadian nationalism. Despite their fundamental divergence on the national question; both imperialists and nationalistes shared an essentially antimodern outlook, and anti-Americanism was their logical point of convergence.By contrast, the most passionate Canadian defenders of American society could be found among liberal and socialist intellectuals like F. R. Scott and Jean-Charles Harvey. They saw continental integration and Canadian-American convergence as both inevitable and desirable. Intellectual continentalism reached its summit of influence during the 1930s and 1940s.The present study is based on the analysis of some 520 texts found essentially in the era's periodical literature. Each, at least in part, explores some aspect of American life or of the relationship between Canada and the United States. Unlike most previous scholarship, which has tended to view anti-American sentiment merely as an expression of Canadian nationalism, this study is more concerned with Canadian intellectuals as thinkers on the left, the right, and the centre.The comparative, pan-Canadian nature of this study reveals that English and French Canadian intellectuals shared common preoccupations with respect to the United States. However, the tone and emphasis of their commentary often differed. In English Canada, where political institutions and the imperial bond were viewed as the mainstays of Canadian distinctiveness, writing on the United States tended to deal primarily with political and diplomatic issues, in Quebec, where political institutions were not generally viewed as vital elements of national distinctiveness, social and cultural affairs dominated writing on the United States

The mezzo-soprano onstage and offstage: a cultural history of the voice-type, singers and roles in the French Third Republic (1870–1918)

This dissertation discusses the mezzo-soprano singer and her repertoire in the Parisian Opéra and Opéra-Comique companies between 1870 and 1918. Mezzo-sopranos are often cast in operas as secondary characters such as mothers, villains and teenaged boys, but they also have leading roles which can match the dramatic complexity of those of their soprano colleagues. Mezzo-soprano roles exist in all major operatic repertoires, but feature strongly in the French repertoire composed during the Third Republic (1870–1940). By analysing primary sources such as newspaper articles, contractual documents, correspondence, scores and images, this dissertation reconstructs the mezzo-soprano’s history in a pivotal time and geographical location, when mezzo-soprano-led works such as Bizet’s Carmen (1875), Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila (1877), and Massenet’s Werther (1892) were enshrined in the operatic repertoire. Focusing primarily on five mezzo-sopranos — Célestine Galli-Marié (1840–1905), Blanche Deschamps-Jehin (1857–1923), Meyriane Héglon (1868–1942), Marie Delna (1875–1932) and Lucy Arbell (1879–1947) — I discuss the Third-Republic mezzo-soprano in these state-funded opera companies. I begin by examining the mezzo-sopranos’ techniques and education, and the realities of their professional lives in the companies. Next, I discuss Carmen, Samson et Dalila and Werther in the context of contemporary issues in the Third Republic, and how the core mezzo-sopranos of this dissertation interpreted their richly-drawn leading roles. Building from this, I finally explore the strong personal ties that three mezzo-sopranos had to their roles — Galli-Marié to Carmen, Delna to Marion in Godard’s La Vivandière (1895) and Arbell to the title role in Massenet’s Cléopâtre (premiered 1914) — and their effect on a work’s performance history