The assessment of psychological resilience in sport performers

Why is it that some athletes are able to withstand the pressures of competitive sport and attain peak performances, whereas others succumb to the demands and under-perform? It is the study of psychological resilience that aims to address this question. To significantly advance psychologists’ knowledge and understanding of this area, there exists an urgent need to develop a sport-specific measure of resilience (Fletcher & Sarkar, 2012; Galli & Vealey, 2008; Gucciardi, Jackson, Coulter, & Mallett, 2011). The purpose of this thesis, therefore, is to investigate the assessment of psychological resilience in sport performers. To this end, the thesis is split into five chapters. Chapter one reviews and critiques the various definitions, concepts, and theories of resilience, and provides an overview of the research that has specifically examined psychological resilience in sport performers. Chapter two reviews psychometric issues in resilience research and its implications for sport psychology (part one), and discusses psychological resilience in sport performers via a review of the stressors athletes encounter and the protective factors that help them withstand these demands (part two). Drawing on these reviews of resilience in sport, Chapter three (studies one-three) describes the development and validation of the Sport Resilience Scale (SRS). More specifically, Study 1 explores the content validity of a pool of items designed to reflect psychological resilience in athletes, Study 2 examines the factorial structure of the SRS using exploratory factor analysis, and Study 3 tests the factorial structure of the SRS via confirmatory factor analysis, investigates whether the components of the measurement model are invariant across different groups, and examines the relationship between the SRS and other relevant concepts. Using the SRS, and based on Fletcher and Sarkar’s (2012) grounded theory of psychological resilience, Chapter four (studies 4 and 5) investigates resilience in sport performers via an examination of moderation and mediation hypotheses. Specifically, Study 4 tests whether the association between the stressors athletes encounter and athletes’ positive adaptation is moderated by the protective factors that athletes possess and Study 5 tests whether the association between the stressors athletes encounter and athletes’ positive adaptation is mediated by their cognitive appraisal processes. Lastly, Chapter five offers a summary, discussion, and conclusion of the thesis. Overall, the research reported in this thesis has developed the first valid and reliable measure of psychological resilience in sport performers and has provided quantitative support for Fletcher and Sarkar’s (2012) theoretical model of sport resilience by illustrating the moderating role of protective factors and the mediating role of cognitive appraisal

Resilience in physical education: A qualitative exploration of protective factors

Resilience refers to findings that some individuals have good outcomes despite exposure to stressors, and protective factors are defined as influences that alter a person’s response to such stressors. Academic resilience research identifies factors that promote positive educational outcomes; however no research to date investigates student resilience in the unique context of Physical Education (PE). The current study sought to explore protective factors that alter secondary school students’ responses to the common stressors associated with PE participation. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with six teachers and 54 students, and transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis. In line with the conceptualisation of protective factors, higher order themes of individual assets and environmental factors were identified. Individual assets included personality, cognitive factors (e.g. value of PE activities) and behavioural factors (e.g. attending extra-curricular activities). Environmental factors included teacher and peer support, and the relative importance of PE promoted by the school and parents

What doesn't kill me...: adversity-related experiences are vital in the development of superior Olympic performance

Objectives: Recent research suggests that experiencing some adversity can have beneficial outcomes for human growth and development. The purpose of this paper was to explore the adversities that the world’s best athletes encounter and the perceived role that these experiences play in their psychological and performance development. Design: A qualitative design was employed because detailed information of rich quality was required to better understand adversity-related experiences in the world’s best athletes. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 Olympic gold medalists from a variety of sports. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Results: The findings indicate that the participants encountered a range of sport- and non-sport adversities that they considered were essential for winning their gold medals, including repeated non-selection, significant sporting failure, serious injury, political unrest, and the death of a family member. The participants described the role that these experiences played in their psychological and performance development, specifically focusing on their resultant trauma, motivation, and learning. Conclusions: Adversity-related experiences were deemed to be vital in the psychological and performance development of Olympic champions. In the future, researchers should conduct more in-depth comparative studies of Olympic athletes’ adversity- and growth-related experiences, and draw on existing and alternative theoretical explanations of the growth–performance relationship. For professional practitioners, adversity-related experiences offer potential developmental opportunities if they are carefully and purposely harnessed

Critical Appraisal of Parameters for Successful Implementation of BRTS in India

Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) is establishing itself as a new and sustainable solution to mass transit against the conventional transit systems in many cities across the globe as well as in India. Different BRTSs have adopted various case-specific solutions to make the system contextual to the place, user-friendly, strategic, technologically advanced, and ecologically sustainable. In most cases, the most favoured solution is governed by aspects related to available infrastructure, budgetary allocations, demand and behavioral patterns of passengers, and areas of focus. The paper makes a critical appraisal of various parameters contributing to the implementation of BRTS services across the world and applicability of the same in India. It also deals with how the application of a new transportation system affects the surrounding area and with the resulting various social and physical impacts. As a conclusion, this paper establishes that successful BRTS must combine proper station design, track design, maintained vehicles and running ways with backup infrastructure, educated and updated drivers and workforce, public cautiousness, and system-backed information technology. Further, it concludes that the institutional framework needs revamping in Indian scenario for successful implementation of BRTS projects

Understanding team resilience in the world's best athletes: a case study of a rugby union World Cup winning team

Objective: Although team resilience research has identified the characteristics of elite sport teams that positively adapt to adversity, further research is required to understand how resilient teams function. The objective of this study, therefore, was to explore the psychosocial processes underpinning team resilience in elite sport. Design: Narrative inquiry was employed to better understand team resilience. Method: The sample consisted of eight members of the 2003 England rugby union World Cup winning team. The autobiographies of these team members were analyzed using three types of narrative analyzes: holistic-content analysis, holistic-form analysis, and categorical-form analysis. Results: Findings revealed five main psychosocial processes underpinning team resilience: transformational leadership, shared team leadership, team learning, social identity, and positive emotions. An examination of narrative structure within the autobiographies revealed a progressive narrative form characterized by a collective positive evaluation of setbacks. Conclusions: This study extends previous team resilience research by going beyond the identification of resilient characteristics to explaining underpinning psychosocial processes. The team resilience processes are discussed in relation to previous research findings and in terms of their implications for practising sport psychologists. It is anticipated that this study will provide practitioners with a framework to develop team resilience at the highest levels of sport

Exploring common stressors in physical education: A qualitative study

Daily stressors, or hassles, refer to the everyday environmental demands that constitute a threat or challenge, or exceed an individual’s biological or psychological capacities. Increasing evidence suggests that daily stressors have a significant impact on adolescents’ educational outcomes, for example, performance, wellbeing and negative attitudes toward school; however, there is limited research examining the concept of common stressors in physical education (PE) lessons. As early adolescence is a developmental period associated with decreased engagement in PE, it is important to identify the environmental stressors that may be associated with increased disengagement. The study included 54 secondary school students and six PE teachers from five schools in the English Midlands. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted and a thematic analysis was applied to the interview transcripts. Three higher order themes were identified from the data: the social environment; the physical and organisational environment; and the performance environment. Common stressors within the social environment included: interpersonal transactions between peers; differences in effort levels during PE; and working outside one’s peer group. Stressors within the physical and organisational environment consisted of environmental situations within the changing facilities and the availability of activities. Finally, performance environment stressors included: situations involving the difficult acquisition of physical skills; and situations where physical appearance and physical competencies were exposed. The study extends previous findings by identifying potentially threatening and frustrating environmental demands that have not been identified in the previous literature. The current study is the first to explore the typical stressors that are experienced by students in PE

Psychological safety: A qualitative study on coach and athlete perceptions

Aims: The concept of psychological safety has received growing interest within a sport context in recent years. Despite a small but growing body of literature, there is still a lack of conceptual clarity and thus research is needed to gain a better understanding of how psychological safety manifests in sport. Existing literature suggests psychological safety may allow for positive outcomes in various sport settings. As this may be of interest to many coaches and sporting organizations, a deeper evidence base will prove beneficial for further support to this claim. The aim of the current study was to garner conceptual clarity by gathering coach and athlete perceptions of psychological safety in high-performance pathway sport environments. Methods: Qualitative findings of six focus groups with coaches (two focus groups) and athletes (four focus groups) were comprised of four sports (Association Football, Boxing, Field Hockey, and Swimming). A total of 25 Participants included 18 athletes (Mage = 19.6 years; Mexperience = 10.6 years), and 7 coaches (Mage = 45 years; Mexperience = 19.6 years) who discussed psychological safety within their high-performance pathway sport environment. Focus groups lasted from 36-78 minutes (Mlength = 56 minutes). Qualitative content analysis was utilized to categorize themes identified from the focus groups.Findings: Findings offer a conceptualization of the defining attributes (e.g., freedom to speak freely and raise issues), antecedents (e.g., positional competition, selection, and deselection), and outcomes (e.g., positive climate and enjoyment of sport) of psychological safety in sport settings. One of the key takeaways within the findings suggests that psychological safety in a sport context may manifest in a dual process, namely on-field (e.g., the freedom to take risks) and off-field (e.g., the freedom to speak freely and raise issues). Keywords: sport coaching; athlete development; wellbeing; sport environments

Analytical and Experimental Investigation of the Critical Length in Casing–Liner Overlap

Offshore drilling operations exhibit various difficulties attributed to shallow flows worldwide. One of the most common practices for drilling offshore wells is to use liners and liner hangers rather than using full casing strings. This reduces the cost of drilling operation. Liners and liner hangers are required to pass certain standards prior to their deployment in the field. This ensures their ability to withstand harsh downhole conditions and maintain the integrity of the well. A liner hanger contains an integrated seal assembly that acts as a barrier to prevent fluid migration. The cement that is placed within the casing–liner overlap is also considered a barrier, and it is critical that it maintains the integrity of the well by mitigating fluid migration to other formations and to the surface. The failure of this dual barrier (cement and seal assembly) system to seal the annular space can result in serious problems that might jeopardize a well’s integrity. Typically, in field applications, the length of a casing–liner overlap is chosen arbitrarily. In some cases, shorter overlaps (50 to 200 ft) are chosen because of the lower cost and easy identification of leaks during pressure tests. However, some loss of well control incidents (particularly the incident that motivated this study) have been linked to fluid leakages along the casing–liner overlap. This paper investigates the critical length of the casing–liner overlap by modeling gas leakage through the cement placed within the overlap using analytical and experimental approaches. Leakage scenarios were developed to mimic gas migration within the cement in the casing–liner overlap. The results showed that the longer the casing–liner overlap, the higher the leakage time. The results also showed that the current casing pressure test duration of 30 min may not be adequate to verify the integrity of the cement within the overlap. Based on the results and analyses, it is recommended to increase the pressure test duration to 90 min. In addition, the results suggest that the length of the casing–liner overlap should not be less than 300 ft to maintain the integrity of the well in the case of gas influx. Further details are highlighted in the results section. In practice, the current rationale behind the selection of a casing–liner overlap length is not sustainable. Thus, the major advantage of this study is that with field data, it provides both scientific and research-based evidence that can be used to inform the decision behind the selection of the casing–liner overlap length, especially in gas migration-prone zones.This research was funded by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), Project number E17PC00005. Open Access fees paid for in whole or in part by the University of Oklahoma Libraries.Ye

Heavy quark energy loss and D-Mesons at RHIC and LHC energies

We obtain the radiative energy loss of a heavy quark in a deconfined medium due to radiation of gluons off them using a recently derived generalised gluon emission spectrum. We find that the heavy flavour loses energy almost in a similar fashion like light quarks through this process. With this, we further analyse the nuclear modification factor for D-meson at LHC and RHIC energies. In particular, the obtained result is found to be in close agreement with the most recent data from ALICE collaboration at 2.76 ATeV Pb-Pb collisions. We also discuss the nuclear modification factor due to the collisional energy loss. Furthermore, the result of non-photonic single electron from the decay of both D and B mesons is compared with the RHIC data at 200 AGeV Au-Au collisions, which is also in close agreement.Comment: Non-photonic single electron results included, title changed a bit, version accepted in Phys. Lett.