Amy Elizabeth Hardwick
Programme: PhD
Thesis title: Exploring Coaches and Coaching in the Context of Special Olympics
About my research: The aim of Amy’s research is to provide an original exploration of coach learning, development and practice within the context of Special Olympics. This area is extremely underrepresented and so research is needed in order to provide an evidenced understanding of coaches within this context, how they can best be supported and in turn how they can best support their athletes.
Andrew Newland
Programme: PhD
Thesis title: Exploring the Athlete-Coach relationship within high performance football.
About my research: The aim of Andy’s research is to explore the Athlete-Coach (A-C) relationship within high performance football. The research focuses on developing our understanding of the knowledge and skills required in order for coaches to develop and maintain high quality relationships with athletes. Initially, the research explores the role of formal coach education and looks specifically at the conceptualisation of the A-C relationship and focuses on how knowledge and skills are developed through the English FA’s coaching pathway at Level 3 and Level 4. Subsequently, the research captures the perceptions of high performance coaches. This includes the realities and challenges of forging and maintaining these relationships in practice. Lastly, the athletes voice is captured in order to better understand their perceptions and experiences relating to the key competencies of coaches they were able to develop high quality relationships with.
Eleanor Cantwell
Programme: PhD
Thesis title: Talent development in the British Gymnastics pathway
About my research: My research forms part of a collaboration between LJMU, British Gymnastics and UK Sports Institute (UKSI, formerly EIS) and has involved operating in a dual capacity as a researcher-practitioner within BG and UKSI performance support teams. Particularly focusing within BG's performance pathway, I am looking at the psycho-social factors within talent development in these spaces. I am especially interested in exploring how such factors may be influenced systemically such as through coaching practice and environment/practice design.
James Bush
Programme: PhD
Thesis Title: TBC
About my research: My PhD thesis covers online coach education, and is an overall exploration of online coach education given the increased prevalence in online coach education in the last 5 years, due to advancements in technology, increased user knowledge of technology use, and the forced use to the pandemic.
Jason Doggett
Programme: PhD Sports Coaching
Thesis title: Working title: An holistic -ecological perspective of elite women’s academy football transition: a case study of the environment.
About my research:
The aim of Jason research is to explore how women’s regional talent centres (RTC) create holistic ecological talent development environments to support players development and transition without jeopardising the ethos of the club or aspects of personal and educational development. The second part of the research aims to gain insight into players perceptions of their experiences of holistic talent development environments and its support mechanisms. Upon completion the aim is to frame these findings within the holistic-ecological framework, and, by doing so inform future practice in an underrepresented field.
Jenna Louise Rice
Programme: PhD
Thesis title: The effect of a gamified motor skill intervention on emotional intelligence in 10-11-year-old disadvantaged primary school children.
About my research: The aim of Jenna’s research is to increase the emotional intelligence of 10-11-year-old primary school children through the improvement of motor skill via the development and evaluation of a gamified approach in physical education. This area of research has not been directly investigated before and offers significant theoretical and practical implications for teaching and learning, whilst promoting positive development trajectories of motor competence and emotional intelligence.
Jono McPhail
Programme: PhD
Thesis title: Coaching Philosophy and the Authentic-Self – A Journey from Conception to Action
About my research: The aim of Jono’s research is to further explore the process of developing a coaching philosophy from conception to action and its associated implications for coaching practice/ process. Whilst research into the area is by no means sparse, this to date has been found to lack philosophical underpinning and in turn, lacks a genuine connection between coaching philosophy and the act of sports coaching. To this end, the intention is further to developing an intervention strategy to positively impact practice and/ or process for the individual coach, organisation and wider groups.
Millie Graveson
Programme: PhD
Thesis title: An investigation into body image psychological projections of physical education teachers and the potential transfer consequences on their students
About my research: Millie's research is looking at how physical education teachers’ body images are projected onto their students through social interactions and pedagogical practice, alongside student affective consequences.
Sam Richardson
Programme: PhD
Thesis title: Understand before we act: Exploring a golf coach’s perception and application of a game-based approach and a female cricket coach’s perception and application of nonlinear pedagogy.
About my research:
My research is focused on coaches’ and teachers’ perceptions and application of game-based approaches (GBA), nonlinear pedagogy (NLP) and constraints-led approach (CLA), and how best to support their understanding and application of these pedagogies. From conducting a systematic review on coaches’ and teachers’ perceptions and application of GBAs, NLP and CLA, the findings revealed a dearth of research evidence on target and striking/fielding games, as well as female coaches’ perception and application of the pedagogies. Therefore, I am investigating a male golf coach’s perception and application of a GBA and a female cricket coach’s perception and application of NLP. This research aims to provide a much-needed insight on how these coaches’ perceive and apply these pedagogies in their practice, as well as providing the basis to how these coaches could be supported with their understanding and application of the pedagogies.
Steven Vaughan
Programme: Professional Doctorate
About my research: Steven’s research relates to cognitions and mental performance within endurance sport, with his systematic review exploring the efficacy of psychological interventions. His first research project is an explorative study to qualitatively examine perspectives of cyclists on factors which determine their attentional focus and control during virtual-world cycle races. This is a novel study with implications for coaches working in this area to best support their riders.
