Physical Activity Exchange: Group members

Programme: Professional Doctorate in Sport and Exercise Psychology

About my research: Exploring the individual difference in reflective practice, specifically how personality impacts end of day rumination.

Programme: Sport and Exercise Psychology Professional Doctorate

Thesis title: Investigating the Professional Development of Sport and Exercise Psychology Professional Doctorate Students – a Longitudinal Study.

About my research: The aim of Ellie’s research is to gain first-hand accounts of how Professional Doctorate students believe they develop their applied sport and exercise psychology service delivery effectiveness, particularly in relation to their knowledge, skills, and character. This research is the product of a research team and has been undertaken since 2018 in an attempt to develop a longitudinal representation and understanding of practitioner development within the context of sport and exercise psychology. There is a lack of research investigating early career practitioners’ experiences throughout the course of the 2 to 4 year (full time/part time) accreditation process, so interviews explore motivation, central task of the moment, sources of influence, emotions around service delivery, theoretical orientation, role and style, measures of effectiveness and preferred learning style of each participant.

Programme: Professional Doctorate

Thesis title: Coaching Practice, resilience and the young athlete: can the foundation mental skills be integrated into the coaching process with young athletes?

About my research: The application of mental skills( MS) is not a fundamental or consistent thread throughout coach education in the sport of athletics. The aim of this research, therefore, is to provide a cohort of coach practitioners with access to a resource, designed by the researcher, to aid MS application with young athletes aged approximately 13 and 18 years. This cohort will work with the researcher in order to test and adapt the resource, with the aim of providing an effective and practical tool to assist coaches to build young athletes’ personal resilience, wellbeing and performance potential through MS application.

Programme: PhD

Thesis title: A phenomenology of running endurance

About my research: My research explores embodied experiences of running, from beginners to ultrarunners. I’m particularly interested in affordances theory, looking at how individuals perceive possibilities for action within their environment and how this changes over time. I am utilising a relatively novel approach, integrating qualitative research and philosophical phenomenology.

Programme: PhD

Thesis Title: 'The Call to Help'; An Exploration of the Phenomenology of What Moves Us to Help Others? Explored Through FireFighters and Volunteers.

About my research: This study looks to explore the phenomenology of altruistic motivation and de-motivation through the experiential accounts of firefighters. Using phenomenological interviews and reflective picture diaries we hope to gain access to the lived experience of helping others in order to help us understand what being motivated to help is like. The findings from this research will potentially aid in developing public sector management practices that promote altruistic motivation.

Programme: PhD

Thesis title: Development of an industry-specific, evidence-informed toolkit to improve working conditions and lifestyle factors of contact centre advisors

About my research: Contact centre advisors typically live on low incomes and experience stressful and highly sedentary working conditions. This can increase the risk of poor health, promoting high levels of absence and attrition in contact centres. Zoe’s research aims to create industry-specific and evidence-informed guidance that contact centres can use to implement policies and interventions to improve the health and work conditions of their advisors.