Poster Session
Leading Ladies: How Leadership Development Transformed Women’s Sport Teams View Digital Media
Poster Session Matthew Ohlson, Elizabeth Gregg, Amanda Blakewood-Pascale
Due to the significant time commitments of practice, competition, and academics, few university student-athletes are offered comprehensive leadership development to hone skills essential to current and post-college success, skills such as teamwork, communication, critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and self-confidence. This preliminary study details the implementation of a leadership development program for student-athletes at a large university in the southeastern United States and examines the effectiveness of this initiative on academic and athletic outcomes. Our findings demonstrate that leadership development training, particularly when reinforced with team-specific leadership coaching, can produce significant positive benefits for student-athletes. In addition, the study also found the greatest gains amongst women athletes, illustrating the importance of customized, gender-specific leadership development.
Overcoming Occupational Injustice: Identifying and Reducing Barriers to Quality Participation in Wheelchair Lacrosse View Digital Media
Poster Session Jennifer Wingrat, Erin Busch
Adapted sports provide an alternative to traditional exercise for individuals with physical disabilities. Athletes with physical disabilities have a human right and an occupational right to participate and engage in adapted sports. Despite the documented benefits of adapted sports, there continue to be limited opportunities for individuals with physical disabilities to participate in sports. This study describes the barriers that hinder quality participation in wheelchair lacrosse. Nine wheelchair lacrosse players and seven staff or volunteers participated in focus groups, individual interviews, and an online survey in order to identify barriers to quality participation as well as to identify themes related to the experiential aspects of participation. We discuss the themes which included autonomy, belongingness, and meaning, and how participation in wheelchair lacrosse meets the intrapersonal and interpersonal needs of athletes, staff, and volunteers. We will also identify the barriers to participation which included limited playing opportunities and a lack of accessible facilities within the community, affecting the elements of challenge and mastery. The poster illustrates how the findings contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between occupational injustice and quality participation within adapted sports and help define the role of occupational therapy within adapted sports.
Psychological Skills of University Level Indian Judokas View Digital Media
Poster Session Varghese C Antony, Deependra Yadav
Psychological skills significantly influence athletes’ performance, achievements, and personal development. The study aims to identify and compare the psychological skills of university-level judokas. A total of 146 male and female university-level judokas Mage 20.68±1.95 years participated in the All India University Judo competition. Further, they were categorized into male and female judokas [n=110 & n=46]; medalists and no-medalist [n=45 & n=111]. Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28 (Smith et al., 1995) measured the psychological skills of judokas. Data analyzed using descriptive statistics and MANOVA. Further, ANOVA was calculated to compare the significance of differences among psychological variables. Significance was set at 0.05 level. Descriptive statistics reveal that Indian university female judokas exhibited higher mean values on all the psychological skill variables except freedom from worry based on gender. When compared with performance, no significant difference was observed in psychological skill variables, though medalists’ judokas showed higher means on all variables than non-medalists. The MANOVA results indicated a significant effect on the dependent variables based on gender, F (7, 147) = 2.087, p< 0.05. The only variable, the level of coping with adversity, was significantly high among female judokas compared to male judokas (univariate F (1, 147) = 48.542, p< 0.001). The university-level female judokas had better psychological skills than male judokas except for freedom from worry. No significant effects were observed between psychological skill variables and performance (medalist and non-medalist). University-level female judokas found higher degrees of coping skills with adversity than male judokas.
Heart Rate and Blood Lactate Response to Three Event Water Skiing
Poster Session Josh Gann, William Hey, Sanchia Outram
Tournament water skiing is split into three separate events, each requiring a very specific and different set of skills in order to be high standard. To date there is sparse published literature on tournament water skiing, with the majority of this research being outdated and focusing on injury. The purpose of this study is to investigate specific metabolic and physiological responses, including heart rate (HR), heart rate recovery (HRRe) and blood lactate (La−) of high-performance water skiers in a simulated tournament setting for all events slalom, trick and jump. This study involved 10 colligate water-ski athletes both male (n = 4) and female (n = 6). Peak HR was taken during each event. Furthermore La− and HR was measured throughout recovery and was noted at different time points (immediately post, 5-minutes, 10 minutes and 30-minutes) post exercise. This study found no significant differences between events. However statistically significant values were found between prior HR and La− and immediate, 5- and 10-minutes post exercise (p = 0.253) (p = 0.730). The results from this study show that both HR and La− had returned to the same level prior to exercise approximately 30 minutes post. Additionally, there were spike in La− immediately post exercise. Future research should focus on how water-ski athletes can change their recovery techniques to reduce La− at a more efficient rate.
