PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

F L Smoll

Publications and source records attributed to F L Smoll.

17 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1994

Examination of the factorial validity of the Group Environment Questionnaire.

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesized factor structure of the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ) with confirmatory factor analysis and to ascertain the degree of factorial invariance across gender and across type of sport (team, individual). Additionally, the underlying theoretical structure on which the GEQ was developed was examined by fitting the data to alternative hierarchical factor structures. These models were tested with GEQ data collected on 740 high school varsity athletes (426 males, 314 females). It was shown that the males and females had different factor structures and that neither group exhibited the hypothesized structure. Attempts to fit the data to a two-factor and a second-order hierarchical factor model were unsuccessful. Finally, exploratory factor analysis did not produce a satisfactory four-factor solution. It was concluded that the data from this sample do not support the hypothesized four-factor structure of the GEQ and that further examination of the factor structure of this instrument is required.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Sensation seeking, stress, and adolescent injuries: a test of stress-buffering, risk-taking, and coping skills hypotheses.

The potential stress-buffering effects of sensation seeking were assessed in a prospective study involving high school athletes. A significant positive relation between major negative sport-specific life events and subsequent injury time-loss occurred only for athletes low in sensation seeking. No evidence was obtained for a competing hypothesis that high sensation seeking would constitute an injury vulnerability factor by increasing risk-taking behaviors. Although low sensation seekers reported poorer stress management coping skills, there was no evidence that differences in coping efficacy mediated the injury vulnerability difference. Results indicate that sensation seeking is a stress-resiliency factor and suggest the utility of assessing relations between life stressors and outcomes that occur within the same environmental context.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

Psychology of the young athlete. Stress-related maladies and remedial approaches.

This article has presented a theoretical framework for understanding the stress process. The conceptual model of stress specifies relations among situational, cognitive, physiologic, and behavioral factors. Each of these basic components of the model is assumed to be influenced by personality and motivational variables. At the situational level, stress involves the balance or imbalance between situational demands and the resources available to deal with them. However, these situational factors affect the person primarily through the intervening influence of cognitive processes. Among the most important of these processes are appraisal of (1) the situational demands, (2) available personal and social resources, (3) the possible consequences of failure to meet the demands, and (4) the perceived meaning of the consequences. A reciprocal relation exists between cognitive and physiologic processes; the nature of the appraisals influences the level of physiologic arousal that is likely to occur, and arousal in turn influences the ongoing appraisal process through physiologic feedback mechanisms. Finally, the behavioral component of the model includes the person's learned behavior tendencies, task-relevant skills, and social skills. Personality and motivational individual difference variables are important; they influence the kinds of situations to which people expose themselves, how they appraise themselves and the situations, how they react physiologically, and how they customarily respond at the behavioral level. With respect to the consequences of stress, mounting evidence suggests that a significant number of young athletes experience adverse psychological, behavioral, and health-related effects. In fact, because of anticipated stresses, some children decline to participate in the first place. Competitive stress detracts from enjoyment of sports, causes performance impairment, and contributes significantly to the drop-out rate in youth sports. Evidence also indicates that competitive stress can cause loss of sleep and put youngsters at greater risk for sustaining athletic injuries. However, although extremely high levels of stress are experienced by a minority of young athletes, the level of stress elicited by youth sports is generally no greater than that found in other achievement-oriented activities in which children participate. The conceptual model of stress not only provides a framework for identifying sources of stress, but also suggests foci for intervention strategies designed to reduce stress in youth sports. In this article, consideration has been given to prominent situational demands that contribute to competitive stress and to various approaches for counteracting the stress-inducing factors. Specifically, measures may be instituted that decrease situational demands associated with winning and losing, organization and administration of sport programs, coaching roles and relationships, and parent roles and responsibilities.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Child↗
PubMed1990

Conjunctive moderator variables in vulnerability and resiliency research: life stress, social support and coping skills, and adolescent sport injuries.

In life event research relating to vulnerability and resilience factors, single moderator variables have typically been the focus of study. Little is known about the ways in which moderator variables may interact with one another to increase vulnerability or resilience. We propose a distinction between conjunctive moderation, in which multiple moderators must co-occur in a specific combination or pattern to maximize a relation between a predictor and an outcome variable, and disjunctive moderation, in which any one of a number of moderators maximizes the predictor-criterion relation. Our results indicate that social support and psychological coping skills are statistically independent psychosocial resources and that they operate in a conjunctive manner to influence the relation between life stress and subsequent athletic injury in adolescents. Only athletes low in both coping skills and social support exhibited a significant stress-injury relation, and in that vulnerable subgroup, negative major life events accounted for up to 30% of the injury variance. Methodological considerations in the assessment of conjunctive moderator effects are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1983

Behavioral assessment in youth sports: coaching behaviors and children's attitudes.

To define the characteristics and dimensional patterning of coaching behaviors, 15,449 behaviors of 31 youth basketball coaches were coded in terms of a 10-category system. Post-season attitude and self-esteem data were obtained from players on 23 teams and were related to the behavioral measures. Compared with rates of reinforcement, encouragement, and technical instruction, punitive responses occurred relatively infrequently. Factor analysis of the coaching behaviors indicated that supportive and punitive behavioral dimensions were orthogonal or statistically independent of one another rather than opposite ends of the same dimension. Punitive and instructional categories were part of the same behavior cluster. The relationship between coaching behaviors and the various player attitudes were highly specific in nature. Coaching behaviors accounted for about half of the variance in post-season attitudes toward the coach and the sport, but for significantly less variance in measures of team solidarity and self-esteem. Surprisingly, the rate of positive reinforcement was unrelated to any of the attitudinal measures. Punishment was negatively related to liking for the coach. In general, technical instruction categories were the strongest predictors of basketball player attitudes.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Physical activity and sport: attitudes and perceptions of young Canadian athletes.

The failure of the literature to report consistent attitude-behaviour relationships or show evidence of stability in children's attitudes toward physical activity (CATPA) led to an examination of the construct physical activity as an attitude object. Five hundred and fifty young male and female athletes were surveyed to obtain the following information; CATPA, children's attitudes toward the specific sport (CATSS) in which they were involved, and the activities perceived to be representative of six physical activity subdomains. Significant differences among sport groups were found in three of the attitude subdomains, the most noticeable being for females in the Aesthetic subdomain. In general, the athletes' perceived physical activities represented the sport in which they were participating. The small differences between CATPA and CATSS mean scores, along with the results of both canonical analysis and factor analysis, led to the conclusion that children's attitudes toward the construct physical activity are essentially equivalent to their attitudes toward a specific sport. The validity of physical activity as a well defined attitude object ws substantiated for young Canadian athletes.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1978

Relationships among measures of preferred tempo and motor rhythm.

Male and female subjects (Ns = 100) performed an accuracy task involving consecutive arm swings at a self-paced tempo. Following this, the subjects performed a motor rhythm task keeping in cadence with audio-visual stimuli presented at their preferred tempo. Previous findings regarding the magnitude of individual differences in preferred tempo and within-individual variability were replicated, as was the absence of sex differences for these attributes. With regard to motor rhythm, the findings indicated that (a) constant and variable error, and not absolute error, were the appropriate measures of performance, (b) there were no sex differences either in spatial or temporal accuracy or in trial-to-trial consistency of performance, (c) substantial individual differences were present in rhythmic accuracy, as were moderate individual differences in variability, (d) neither rhythmic accuracy nor variability was appreciably related to preferred tempo, and (e) spatial and temporal accuracy are relatively independent components of rhythmic accuracy.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1975

Preferred tempo in performance of repetitive movements.

Within- and between-S variability in performance of repetitive movements at a self-paced tempo was studied. Male and female Ss (Ns = 75) performed 36 consecutive arm swings at an individually chosen tempo. Differences between Ss' selected tempos of performance were considerably greater than the amount of variation in Ss' motor response times, indicating that individuals have preferred tempos of voluntary movement which differ from those of other individuals. No sex differences were evidenced in either preferred tempo or consistency of performance.

Adolescent↗