Professionalism, Golf Coaching and a Master of Science Degree: A commentary

As a point of reference I congratulate Simon Jenkins on tackling the issue of professionalism in coaching. As he points out coaching is not a profession, but this does not mean that coaching would not benefit from going through a professionalization process. As things stand I find that the stimulus article unpacks some critically important issues of professionalism, broadly within the context of golf coaching. However, I am not sure enough is made of understanding what professional (golf) coaching actually is nor how the development of a professional golf coach can be facilitated by a Master of Science Degree (M.Sc.). I will focus my commentary on these two issues

A factor analysis of the SSQ (Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Scale)

OBJECTIVE: The speech, spatial, and qualities of hearing questionnaire (SSQ) is a self-report test of auditory disability. The 49 items ask how well a listener would do in many complex listening situations illustrative of real life. The scores on the items are often combined into the three main sections or into 10 pragmatic subscales. We report here a factor analysis of the SSQ that we conducted to further investigate its statistical properties and to determine its structure. DESIGN: Statistical factor analysis of questionnaire data, using parallel analysis to determine the number of factors to retain, oblique rotation of factors, and a bootstrap method to estimate the confidence intervals. STUDY SAMPLE: 1220 people who have attended MRC IHR over the last decade. RESULTS: We found three clear factors, essentially corresponding to the three main sections of the SSQ. They are termed "speech understanding", "spatial perception", and "clarity, separation, and identification". Thirty-five of the SSQ questions were included in the three factors. There was partial evidence for a fourth factor, "effort and concentration", representing two more questions. CONCLUSIONS: These results aid in the interpretation and application of the SSQ and indicate potential methods for generating average scores

The journal of Islamic law : adressing issues of law, religion and culture

Knowledge intensive business services such as IT Services, rely on the expertise of the knowledge workers for performing the activities involved in the delivery of services. The activities performed could range from performing simple, repetitive tasks to resolving more complex situations. The expertise of the task force can also vary from novices who cost less to advanced skill workers and experts who are more expensive. Staffing of service systems relies largely on the assumptions underlying the operational productivity of the workers. Research independently points to the impact of factors such as complexity of work and expertise of the worker on worker productivity. In this paper, we examine the impact of complexity of work, priority or importance of work and expertise of the worker together, on the operational productivity of the worker. For our empirical analysis, we use the data from real-life engagement in the IT service management domain. Our finding, on the basis of the data indicates, not surprisingly, that experts are more suitable for complex or high priority work with strict service levels. In the same setting, when experts are given simpler tasks of lower priority, they tend to not perform better than their less experienced counterparts. The operational productivity measure of experts and novices is further used as an input to a discrete event simulation based optimization framework that model real-life service system to arrive at an optimal staffing. Our work demonstrates that data driven techniques, similar to the one presented here is useful for making more accurate staffing decisions by understanding worker efficiency derived from the analysis of operational data.</p

The Learning Benefits of Haptic Guidance are Age-Dependent

In a previous study with young healthy subjects, we found that the training condition –haptic guidance, visual feedback, and no guidance- that enhanced learning of a discrete time-dependent task the most depended on the subjects’ initial skill level. Haptic guidance seemed to be especially suitable for initially less skilled subjects, while skilled subjects benefited more from visual feedback. The aim of the present study was to evaluate which feedback condition enhanced learning in a smaller group of elderly subjects. The experiment consisted in performing a fast tennis forehand stroke in a virtual environment. A tendon-based parallel robot was used to apply haptic guidance during training. Results showed that elderly subjects performed worse than young subjects during baseline, and that they reduced the errors by a similar amount. However, in contrast to the results obtained with young subjects, training without guidance resulted in better learning compared to training with visual and haptic guidance. Training with haptic and visual guidance was especially detrimental in subjects older than 75 years. Thereby, the training strategy that enhanced learning the most seemed to be age-dependent. The sensory and motor limitations associated with age may have limited the effectiveness of visual and haptic guidance

Interferência contextual e nível de habilidade na aprendizagem do serviço do voleibol

Este estudo investigou o efeito da interferência contextual (IC) na aquisição do serviço do voleibol em adolescentes com diferentes níveis de habilidade, considerando os testes de transferência imediato e retardado. A amostra foi composta por 56 meninas com idade entre 14 e 16 anos, distribuídas em quatro grupos de prática: aleatório com nível superior de habilidade (GAS), blocos com nível superior de habilidade (GBS), aleatório com nível inferior de habilidade (GAI) e blocos com nível inferior de habilidade (GBI). A tarefa motora consistiu dos serviços por baixo e por cima direcionados a alvos na quadra. Os resultados mostraram que o efeito da IC não foi observado nos grupos GAI e GBI, por outro lado, os grupos GAS e GBS apresentaram melhor desempenho no teste de transferência imediato. A ausência de diferenças significativas no teste de transferência retardado sugere que o efeito da IC pode ser temporário.Este estudio investigó el efecto de la interferencia contextual (IC) en la adquisición del servicio de voleibol en adolescentes con diferentes niveles de habilidad, teniendo en cuenta las pruebas de transferencia inmediata y retardada. La muestra estuvo conformada por 56 niñas de edades comprendidas entre 14 y 16 años, divididas en cuatro grupos de práctica: al azar con mayor nivel de habilidad (GAS), por bloques con mayor nivel de habilidad (GBS), al azar con menor nivel de habilidad (GAI ) y por bloques con menor nivel de habilidad (GBI). La tarea motora consistió de servicios por abajo y por encima dirigidos a objetivos en la cancha. Los resultados mostraron que no se observó el efecto de la IC en los grupos GAI y GBI, por otra parte, los grupos GAS y GBS presentaron mejor rendimiento en la prueba de transferencia inmediata. La ausencia de diferencias significativas en la prueba de transferencia de retraso sugiere que el efecto de la IC puede ser temporario.The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of contextual interference on acquiring the volleyball serve in adolescents with different skill levels, considering then immediate and delayed transfer tests. Participants were 56 schoolgirls separated in four practice groups: random practice with higher level skill subjects (GAS), blocked practice with higher level skill subjects (GBS), random practice with lower level skill subjects (GAI) and blocked practice with lower level skill subjects (GBI). The acquisition task consisted in performing underhand and overhead services directed at two targets affixed to the ground. The results showed no effect of contextual interference on the lower level skill subjects. However when comparing the types of practice between the higher level skill subjects, the effect was observed in the immediate transfer test. The absence of significant differences between groups in the delayed transfer test suggest that the contextual interference effect may be temporary

Older patients’ experiences of pre-treatment discussions: an analysis of qualitative data from a study of colorectal cancer

It has been suggested that cancer in the elderly is badly treated and that criteria other than chronological age should form the basis for treatment decisions. A study was conducted to discover whether there were age-related differences in the treatment received by a sample of older people with colorectal cancer, and to determine whether any differences were related to patterns of functional status. It was recognised that involvement in treatment decisions may be influenced by contextual factors, therefore additional qualitative data were collected from patients themselves. Responses to semi-structured questions from 337 patients aged 58-95 years were analysed in the light of previous research, which suggests that only a minority want to share equally in medical decision-making with clinicians. Our aim was to determine whether a similar pattern was apparent in patients' responses, and to develop understanding of the determinants of involvement in treatment decision-making. The analysis suggests that patients often lack a sense of agency in the face of disease- and treatment-related events, and that many do not believe they possess the relevant knowledge or authority to act positively in these circumstances. Concerns remain about the losses involved in taking a dependent approach and about the extent to which resisting dependency is possible