A self-determination theory based investigation of life skills development in youth sport.

This study investigated if basic need satisfaction and frustration mediated the associations between autonomy-supportive and controlling coaching behaviours and participants' development of eight different life skills in youth sport. British sports participants (N = 309, Mage = 14.71) completed measures assessing the study variables. Correlational analyses showed that autonomy-supportive coaching behaviours were positively associated with the satisfaction of participants' three basic needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) and their development of all eight life skills, whereas controlling coaching behaviours were only positively related to the frustration of participants' three basic needs. Mediational analyses revealed that satisfaction of all three basic needs combined (total need satisfaction) mediated the associations between autonomy-supportive coaching behaviours and participants' development of the eight life skills. Relatedness satisfaction mediated the associations between autonomy-supportive coaching behaviours and participants' development of all eight life skills except for goal setting; autonomy satisfaction mediated the associations between autonomy-supportive coaching behaviours and participants' time management skills; and competence satisfaction mediated the associations between autonomy-supportive coaching behaviours and participants' goal setting and emotional skills. Based on such findings, coaches should look to display autonomy-supportive behaviours that help to satisfy participants' three basic psychological needs and promote their life skills development in sport.

Coaches, parents, or peers: Who has the greatest influence on sports participants' life skills development?

This study investigated the relationships between the coach, parent, and peer motivational climate and participants' life skills development in youth sport. In total, 308 participants (Mage = 14.67, SD = 2.20) completed a survey assessing the motivational climate (mastery and ego) and their life skills development in sport (teamwork, goal setting, social skills, emotional skills, problem solving and decision making, leadership, time management, and interpersonal communication). Multiple regression analyses found that a peer-created mastery-climate had the strongest positive associations with all eight life skills and total life skills. Coach and parent mastery-oriented climates were also positively related to five of the life skills and total life skills. A parent-created ego-climate had the strongest negative association with all life skills except for goal setting; whereas, a coach-created ego-climate was negatively related to three life skills and total life skills. Contrary to expectations, a peer-created ego-climate was positively associated with three life skills and total life skills. In practice, these novel results suggest that peers have the greatest positive influence on participants' life skills development in sport and all three social agents should be encouraged to create a mastery-climate to help promote participants' life skills development.

Life skills development and enjoyment in youth soccer: The importance of parental behaviours.

This study investigated the relationships between parental behaviours and players' life skills development and enjoyment within youth soccer. In total, 317 players (Mage = 12.83, SD = 1.70, age range = 10-16 years) completed a survey assessing parental behaviours (praise and understanding, directive behaviour, and pressure), perceived life skills development (teamwork, goal setting, time management, emotional skills, interpersonal communication, social skills, leadership, and problem solving and decision making), and enjoyment of soccer. Multiple regression analyses found that praise and understanding was the key contributor to the outcome variables, making the largest unique contribution to teamwork, goal setting, leadership, and total life skills. Directive behaviour made the largest unique contribution to emotional skills, and problem solving and decision making; whereas pressure made the largest unique contribution to participants' time management and social skills. In practice, the results suggest that parents should display praise and understanding behaviours, which were the main contributor to players' development of life skills within soccer.

Development and Implementation of a Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire for Ultraendurance Athletes.

The nutritional intake of ultraendurance athletes is often poorly matched with the requirements of the sport. Nutrition knowledge is a mediating factor to food choice that could correct such imbalances. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop and validate a questionnaire to assess the nutrition knowledge of ultraendurance athletes. Nutritional knowledge was assessed using a modified sports nutrition knowledge questionnaire (ULTRA-Q). Four independent assessors with specialization in sports nutrition confirmed the content validity of the ULTRA-Q. Registered sports nutritionists, registered dietitians, and those without nutrition training completed the ULTRA-Q on two separate occasions. After the first completion, a significant difference in nutrition scores between groups (p ≤ .001) provided evidence of construct validity. After the second completion, intraclass correlation coefficients comparing nutrition scores between time points (.75-.95) provided evidence of test-retest reliability. Subsequently, experienced ultraendurance athletes (male: n = 74 and female: n = 27) completed the ULTRA-Q. Athletes also documented their sources of nutrition knowledge for ultraendurance events. The total nutrition knowledge score for ultraendurance athletes was 68.3% ± 9.5%, and there were no significant differences in knowledge scores between males and females (67.4% ± 9.6% and 70.7% ± 9.3%, respectively) or between runners and triathletes (69.1% ± 9.7% and 65.1% ± 9.4%, respectively). In general, it appeared that ultraendurance athletes favored other athletes (73%) over nutrition experts (8%) as a source of nutritional information. The findings of this study indicate that ultraendurance athletes had a reasonable level of nutrition knowledge, but interathlete variability suggests a need for targeted nutrition education.

Transformational leadership and task cohesion in sport: the mediating role of inside sacrifice.

In this cross-sectional study, we examined a mediational model whereby transformational leadership is related to task cohesion via sacrifice. Participants were 381 American (Mage = 19.87 years, SD = 1.41) Division I university athletes (188 males, 193 females) who competed in a variety of sports. Participants completed measures of coach transformational leadership, personal and teammate inside sacrifice, and task cohesion. After conducting multilevel mediation analysis, we found that both personal and teammate inside sacrifice significantly mediated the relationships between transformational leadership behaviors and task cohesion. However, there were differential patterns of these relationships for male and female athletes. Interpretation of the results highlights that coaches should endeavor to display transformational leadership behaviors as they are related to personal and teammate inside sacrifices and task cohesion.

Perceptions of the motivational climate, basic psychological needs, and life skills development in Chinese physical education students.

Introduction: Life skills can have a positive impact on young people's mental health, academic performance, and overall well-being. Physical education (PE) is viewed as a promising setting for developing students' life skills, but less is known about this in non-English speaking countries such as China. Based on the integration of Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Achievement Goal Theory (AGT), we aimed to examine the relationships between students' perceptions of the teacher-initiated motivational climate (mastery- or performance-oriented) and their life skills development in PE, as well as the mediating role of their basic psychological needs (BPNs) (satisfaction or frustration). Methods: We employed a cross-sectional survey. Chinese students (N = 533, Age range = 13-18 years) completed measures assessing these variables. We fulfilled correlational and mediational analyses. Results: These findings showed that mastery climate was positively associated with needs satisfaction (r = 0.66) and eight life skills (r range = 0.44-0.61), whereas negatively associated with needs frustration (r = -0.49). Performance climate was positively related to needs frustration (r = 0.52), but negatively related to needs satisfaction (r = -0.38) and eight life skills (r range = -0.28 - -0.15). Needs satisfaction was positively (r range = 0.44-0.65), while needs frustration was negatively (r range = -0.50 - -0.34) linked with eight life skills. Furthermore, needs satisfaction positively mediated the effect of mastery climate on life skills development, but it is not found that needs frustration mediated the effect of performance climate on life skills besides goal setting, social skills, and time management. Conclusion: In conclusion, our study extended the previous literature on life skills in PE, and highlighted the roles of motivational climate and BPNs on students' life skills development. In practice, PE teachers should be encouraged to create a mastery climate as well as avoid a performance climate, to foster students' BPNs satisfaction, which in turn, promote their life skills development.

Self-Paced Endurance Performance and Cerebral Hemodynamics of the Prefrontal Cortex: A Scoping Review of Methodology and Findings.

Recent research has suggested that top-down executive function associated with the prefrontal cortex is key to the decision-making processes and pacing of endurance performance. A small but growing body of literature has investigated the neurological underpinnings of these processes by subjecting the prefrontal cortex to functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) measurement during self-paced endurance task performance. Given that fNIRS measurement for these purposes is a relatively recent development, the principal aim of this review was to assess the methodological rigor and findings of this body of research. We performed a systematic literature search to collate research assessing prefrontal cortex oxygenation via fNIRS during self-paced endurance performance. A total of 17 studies met the criteria for inclusion. We then extracted information concerning the methodology and findings from the studies reviewed. Promisingly, most of the reviewed studies reported having adopted commonplace and feasible best practice guidelines. However, a lack of adherence to these guidelines was evident in some areas. For instance, there was little evidence of measures to tackle and remove artifacts from data. Lastly, the reviewed studies provide insight into the significance of cerebral oxygenation to endurance performance and the role of the prefrontal cortex in pacing behavior. Therefore, future research that better follows the guidelines presented will help advance our understanding of the role of the brain in endurance performance and aid in the development of techniques to improve or maintain prefrontal cortex (PFC) oxygenation to help bolster endurance performance.

Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Chinese Version of the Life Skills Scale for Physical Education.

Research on life skills in physical education (PE) has gained great attention in recent years. However, there is a need to translate life skills measures for PE into other languages. This research adapted the Life Skills Scale for PE (LSSPE) into Chinese and provided evidence for its validity and reliability. In Study 1, the scale was cross-culturally adapted through translation and back-translation, expert feedback, pilot testing, and scale refinement to provide evidence for the content validity of the scale. Study 2 provided evidence for the factorial validity, internal consistency reliability, and test-retest reliability of the scale by testing it with 583 students. Study 3, with 390 students, provided evidence for the nomological validity of the measure, with results showing perceived teacher autonomy support and students' basic need satisfaction were positively associated with life skills development in PE, and that controlling teaching and basic need frustration were negatively associated with life skills development. In conclusion, the results illustrate that the LSSPE can be used to evaluate Chinese-speaking students' life skills development in PE.

Life Skills Development Through Sport in Brazil: A Study Based on Self-Determination Theory.

This study investigated whether a large sample of youth participants' life skills development through sport was impacted by demographic variables and/or variables based on self-determination theory. Participants were 461 Brazilian youth sport (325 boys; 136 girls) aged 10-17 years (Mage = 15.12, SD = 1.44). Participants completed a self-report research survey to assess demographic variables, coach autonomy support, basic need satisfaction, and sport motivation. We analyzed data using cluster analysis, a chi-square test and multivariate analysis of variance. We found that sport participants in the high life skills development cluster were older (p = .007) and had more years of sport experience (p = .032). Compared to the low life skills development cluster, sports participants in the high life skills development cluster displayed higher scores for coach's autonomy support (p = .001), autonomy satisfaction (p = .002), competence satisfaction (p = .001), relatedness satisfaction (p = .001), and identified regulation (p = .023). In practice, these findings indicate that coaches should seek to satisfy participants' three basic psychological needs and encourage an identified regulation form of motivation when trying to promote participants' life skills development through sport.

A test of optimal theory on young adolescents' standing long jump performance and motivation.

The OPTIMAL theory of motor learning contends that an external focus of attention (EF), enhanced expectancies (EE), and autonomy support (AS) are key attentional and motivational variables that optimise motor performance. We examined how integrating an EF into EE and AS interventions would impact young adolescents' standing long jump performance and self-efficacy, perceived competence, task effort, task importance and positive affect. Forty-eight participants completed 3 jumps in a baseline, EF (focus on jumping towards the cone), EE-EF (positive social-comparative feedback/high success probability) and AS-EF (self-definition of success) conditions. Both the EF and AS-EF conditions (but not the EE-EF condition) improved jump performance from baseline. The EF, EE-EF and AS-EF conditions improved young adolescents' self-efficacy, perceived competence, task effort and positive affect in comparison to baseline and were predictors of jump performance (as was task importance). However, in the EE-EF condition motivational states improved (from baseline) but this did not translate into performance improvements. The findings show that directing attention to visual external cues both independently and when framed within AS conditions enhanced young adolescents' jump performance and motivation through efficient goal-action coupling. In practice, PE teachers and sports coaches working with young adolescents can support autonomy by allowing self-definition of success using an external cue to enhance effective goal-action coupling, motor performance and motivation.

Coach-athlete relationships and life skills development among Brazilian handball players: A prospective study / Relaciones entrenador-atleta y desarrollo de habilidades para la vida entre jugadores brasileños de balonmano: un estudio prospectivo

This study was to examine the prospective associations between coach-athlete relationship (CAR) and life skills development in youth handball players. This study employed a longitudinal research design. A total of 78 male handball players completed the Life Skills Scale for Sport and the Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire over three waves of data collection: start of the season; midseason and end of the season. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance Pearson’s Correlation and Linear Multiple Regression (p<.05). The findings indicated the three dimensions of CAR seem to have higher effect on life skills subscales as the season progressed (i.e., higher effect on life skills at T3 compared to T2 and T1). Commitment and Complementarity were positively associated with several life skills subscales at all three timepoints. Results suggest that the quality of the CAR is an important determinant for the de-velopment of life skills in youth handball players across the sports season. (AU)

Este estudio tuvo como objetivo examinar las posibles asociaciones entre la relación entrena-dor-atleta (CAR) y el desarrollo de habilidades para la vida en jugadores juveniles de balon-mano. Este estudio empleó un diseño de investigación longitudinal. Un total de 78 jugadores masculinos de balonmano completaron la Escala de Habilidades para la Vida Deportiva y la Es-cala de Entrenadores. Cuestionario sobre la relación con los atletas en tres oleadas de recopi-lación de datos: inicio de la temporada; mitad de temporada y final de temporada. Los datos se analizaron mediante análisis multivariado de varianza, correlación de Pearson y regresión lineal múltiple (p<0,05). Los hallazgos indicaron que las tres dimensiones de CAR parecen te-ner un mayor efecto en las subescalas de habilidades para la vida a medida que avanzaba la temporada (es decir, un mayor efecto sobre las habilidades para la vida en T3 en comparación con T2 y T1). El compromiso y la complementariedad se asociaron positivamente con varias subescalas de habilidades para la vida en los tres momentos. Los resultados sugieren que la ca-lidad del CAR es un determinante importante para el desarrollo de habilidades para la vida en jugadores juveniles de balonmano a lo largo de la temporada deportiva. (AU)

The role of executive function in the self-regulation of endurance performance: A critical review.

Research has outlined how self-regulation is crucial to the decision-making processes and pacing of endurance performance. There is evidence to suggest that executive function is implicated in self-regulatory processes, as the two are conceptually similar and share common brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex. This review draws upon various research domains to argue that executive function underlies the top-down self-regulation of endurance tasks. Indeed, executive functioning capacity may explain differences in endurance performances. Although contentious, there is evidence to suggest a hypofrontality effect during endurance exercise. Furthermore, research has highlighted that psychological interventions, the training of executive functions, and transcranial direct stimulation can induce prefrontal cortex changes and "boost" executive functioning, ultimately enhancing the self-regulation of endurance performance. Future directions for research are proposed with the aim of stimulating investigations that will further elucidate the importance of executive functioning and self-regulation to endurance performance.