Coaches' naturalistic decision-making: injury prevention in youth elite soccer players.

The purpose of this study is to uncover and understand the naturalistic decision-making process in youth academy soccer coaches, when making decisions for mitigating injury in youth soccer players. Data were collected on seven youth academy soccer coaches over two six-week data collection cycles. Coaches monitored and recorded individual injury risk incidents that occurred during each training and competition session, and reported these to the researcher. Following each cycle, Critical Decision Audit semi-structured interviews were conducted with each coach to discuss in greater detail the incidences they each experienced, aiming to uncover and interpret the naturalistic decision-making process of each coach when facing high-pressured decision requirements. Three general dimensions were produced, which captured the factors influencing decision-making: 'Problem Framing Via Past Experience', 'Smart Procedures' and 'Adapting Environment for Injury Prevention'. Coaches were able to scan and extract cues of injury risk from their immediate environment, through the knowledge and expertise derived from their past experiences. Future considerations of the athletes' development and well-being were an important influencing factor. Once an incident was detected, smart procedures were employed by the coaches to successfully problem-frame the incident. A central finding suggests critical incidents often occur over extended timescales and are not exclusively defined through one discrete timeframe. Finally, in response to specific indicators of injury, coaches actively adapted the immediate environment of players at risk via a number of deliberate actions by consulting medical and sport science support staff, parents and other coaching colleagues. Understanding coach naturalistic decision-making as a key resource for youth player injury management presents youth academy development systems with a qualitative resource that is both immediate and complementary to more established sport science methods of injury management. The current research makes initial strides toward greater insight into naturalistic decision mechanisms undertaken by coaches on how decisions emerge and manifest within the specific context of an elite youth football academy in Scotland. Applied implications are presented as guidelines for coach talent identification and development, which detail specific means for the integration of coach naturalistic decision-making as a valid and credible method for injury management in youth academies

Prediction and Situational Option Generation in Soccer

Paul Ward, Michigan Technological University Naturalistic models of decision making, such as the Recognition- Primed Decision (RPD) model (e.g., Klein, Calderwood, & Clinton-Cirocco, 1986; Klein, 1997), suggest that as individuals become more experienced within a domain they automatically recognize situational patterns as familiar which, in turn, activates an associated situational response. Typically, this results in a workable course of action being generated first, and subsequent options generated only if the initial option proves ineffective

Understanding Leadership Practice Utilizing a Naturalistic Decision-Making Model Among Health Care Leaders

This study analyzes the leadership practice of two experienced female leaders from the health care sector to understand their decision-making processes as it relates to their personal theorizing. Ineffective and unethical leadership in American business is a reality in today’s society. Organizations are in need of leaders who approach leadership from a paradigm which supports effective leadership practice. It is my assertion regarding this study that effective leadership may be connected to a leader’s values which impact their leadership practice and decision-making. This study relies on a conceptual and theoretical framework based in Cornett’s (1990) Naturalistic Decision Making Model. It is imperative to the development of healthy learning organizations that the relationships influencing a leader’s naturalistic decision-making be explored. At the time of this writing, no naturalistic collective case study research in the health care industry has been completed to relate a leader’s naturalistic decision-making or personal practical theories (PPTs) as defined by Cornett (1990). Furthermore, research has not been explored in a field outside of education regarding the formation of a leader’s PPTs and the relationship between a leader’s experiences and leadership practice. Study findings demonstrated that Cornett’s (1990) naturalistic decision-making model (NDM) is a useful heuristic for a health care leader’s reflective leadership practice. Health care leaders’ perceptions of leadership are systematically achieved through the process of reflective thought which the NDM assists in emerging. The NDM is an efficacious tool for personal and professional development. The constructs of this model were effective in allowing the health care leaders studied to reflect on their leadership practice and decision making. This research found that the collective theme amongst the participants was a value-based leadership paradigm. The data collected in this research project suggests that the PPTs of health care leaders are developed through their life experiences. They are described in the context of their core values and leadership personal and formal theorizing. They are understood through their life experiences, interactions with other leaders, and interactions with those around them. Discovering the relationships involved with a leader’s naturalistic decision-making is of great importance to the educational and health care communities. It has the potential to impact human resources policies and training leading to stronger and more effective organizations. Understanding this phenomenon may lead to more reflective and thoughtful decision-making among health care leaders. It has the potential to impact organizational policies, structure, training, commitment, and profits. This may lead to healthier and intrinsically motivated employees and more effective learning organizations

Shipboard Crisis Management: A Case Study.

The loss of the "Green Lily" in 1997 is used as a case study to highlight the characteristics of escalating crises. As in similar safety critical industries, these situations are unpredictable events that may require co-ordinated but flexible and creative responses from individuals and teams working in stressful conditions. Fundamental skill requirements for crisis management are situational awareness and decision making. This paper reviews the naturalistic decision making (NDM) model for insights into the nature of these skills and considers the optimal training regimes to cultivate them. The paper concludes with a review of the issues regarding the assessment of crisis management skills and current research into the determination of behavioural markers for measuring competence

Qualitative Analysis of Naturalistic Decision Making in Adults with Chronic Heart Failure

Background: Self-care of heart failure has been described as a naturalistic decision-making process, but the data available to defend this description are anecdotal. Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore the process used by adults with chronic heart failure to make decisions about their symptoms. Methods: This was a secondary analysis of data obtained from four mixed methods studies. The full data set held qualitative data on 120 adults over the age of 18 years. For this analysis, maximum variation sampling was used to purposively select a subset of 36 of the qualitative interviews to reanalyze. Results: In this sample, equally distributed by gender, 56% Caucasian, between 40 and 98 years, the overarching theme was that decisions about self-care reflect a naturalistic decision-making process with components of situation awareness with mental simulation of a plausible course of action and an evaluation of the outcome of the action. In addition to situation awareness and mental simulation, three key factors were identified as influencing self-care decision making: (a) experience; (b) decision characteristics such as uncertainty, ambiguity, high stakes, urgency, illness, and involvement of others in the decision-making process; and (c) personal goals. Discussion: These results support naturalistic decision making as the process used by this sample of adults with heart failure to make decisions about self-care

Decision making by patients: An application of naturalistic decision making theory to cervical screening and chronic renal failure, Working Paper 2006/5

Over their lifetime, individuals typically make many decisions about health and health care. Theoretical approaches to decision making have been dominated by a rational, analytic approach which assumes that problems are relatively fixed and well-defined and which have foreseeable and measurable endpoints. Naturalistic decision making (NDM) approaches attempt to mimic ?real world? situations where problems vary, may be defined differently by individuals with diverse perspectives and where endpoints are uncertain and complicated. In-depth interviews were conducted with 40 individuals living in the community: twenty participants had chronic renal failure and twenty were women in the target age range for cervical cancer screening. Decision making processes used by these two groups of health care consumers correspond well with the concepts of NDM. In particular, Image Theory provides a framework within which the process of decision making by health care consumers can be described, including the issues which influence what decisions are made. The findings also demonstrate the usefulness of studying decision making in ?real world? situations and in using less analytic techniques than traditional normative approaches in evaluating health care decision making. The results suggest that NDM is deserving of a wider audience in health care. Health care providers who use NDM models to understand their patients? decision making processes may improve their capacity to involve patients in decision making.Decision making, cervical screening