Kee, Ying Hwa

With the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) focus on using ICT in resourceful and innovative ways to improve teaching and learning (MOE, 2014), PE teachers should be trained and equipped with strategies to create environments where students are given more autonomy to decide ‘what’ to learn and ‘how’ to learn, according to students’ ability to use Information Communication and Technologies (ICT). For example, making available e-learning materials related to the lesson before and after the class affords students opportunities to learn more readily on their own than when these materials are absent. Using video recording to provide visual and verbal feedback from the teacher or among peers for skill performance during a lesson is just one of many ways ICT can be used to maximise students’ learning and develop the affective, psychomotor, and cognitive domains set out in the PE syllabus. The advantages of providing students with opportunities to harness ICT can be directly beneficial for skills acquisition and indirectly for honing life skills.

Since the positive psychology was emerged in the past decade, positive constructs contribute to athlete’s well-being had received considerable attention in sport. However, the parent of all virtues, gratitude is rarely discussed in sport psychology, not to mentioned its psychological mechanisms. In this regard, the aim of current study was to investigate the relationship between adolescent athlete’s gratitude and life satisfaction. In addition, we proposed team cohesion to be a potential mediator based on reciprocally-altruistic relationships induced by gratitude. Three hundred adolescent athletes were recruited for the current study and they completed a set of questionnaire. Structure equation modeling was used to examine our hypothesis. It was found gratitude positive related to athlete’s life satisfaction. More important, we found team cohesion partially mediated the relationship between gratitude and athlete’s life satisfaction which supported our hypothesis. This study contribute to the literature by identifying the essential psychological process behind the relationship. Implications and applications were discussed in term of gratitude literature.

Purpose The present study examined the relationship between playing style adaptability and team match performance indicators throughout the season. Three playing style adaptability metrics were analysed, namely, (1) flexibility (i.e., exhibiting a wide range of playing styles), (2) reactivity (i.e., adapting playing style based on opposition) and (3) imposition (i.e., executing predetermined playing style regardless of opposition).
Methods Team playing styles were derived through a clustering analysis of 21,708 matches played in the top five male European leagues from 2014/15 to 2019/20. Spearman’s correlation was utilized to assess the association between the three playing style adaptability metrics and four team match performance indicators (e.g., shots taken in opposition penalty box; shots conceded in own penalty box; goals scored; goals conceded; and total wins).
Results Playing style flexibility was positively associated with both offensive and defensive match performance indicators and win frequency. Conversely, playing style reactivity and imposition were negatively associated with these team match performance indicators.
Conclusions Our results suggest that the capacity to exhibit a wide range of playing styles throughout a season is associated with greater team performance. Furthermore, it is possible that high performing teams are capable of functionally switching between playing style reactivity and imposition, depending on match dynamics.

The study provided an exploratory investigation into problematic mobile phone use among youth athletes. The study aimed to identify the factors contributing to problematic use and effects of problematic use among youth athletes. 369 Singaporean youth athletes, aged between 12 and 19 years old, participated in the study. A structural topic modelling approach using the R package stm was used to analyse the data. The process generated a list of topics for each of the open-ended survey questions. Subsequent interpretation was done to label the topics and group them into higher thematic categories. The prevalence of problematic mobile phone use in the sampled population was 40.65%. The analysis produced 38 topics for factors and 36 topics for effects. For factors, the higher thematic categories were habitual/compulsive use, accessibility/utility, alleviation of boredom/moods, lack of control, coping with school/work, entertainment, and communication. For effects, the higher thematic categories were time wastage/insufficient time, distraction/loss of focus, sleep/tiredness, sport-related areas, and addiction. The study provided novel insight into issues surrounding problematic mobile phone use among youth athletes. Future research needs to be conducted to further investigate the topics and themes that emerged.

The study sought to evaluate a custom intervention programme, informed by the Theory of Planned Behaviour, which aimed to help youth athletes reduce their problematic mobile phone use. A hybrid mixed-methods design was employed in this study, involving a one-group pretest–posttest design and a mixed-methods multiple case study design. 23 Singaporean youth athletes (aged 13–19 years) participated in the intervention programme, and were assessed at pre, post, and follow-up timepoints for their objective and subjective measures of mobile phone use. After the intervention programme had concluded, a smaller sample of eight participants were selected to participate in semi-structured interviews to get their views and feedback on the intervention programme. The results showed that while there were no significant differences in the objective measures of mobile phone use (i.e., duration and frequency) between the timepoints, there was a significant reduction in the subjective measure (i.e., SAS-SV) of problematic mobile phone use in both post and follow-up timepoints. This was supported by the multiple case study analysis, which found that participants were able to implement the various strategies that were taught during the intervention programme, and that those strategies were able to help them reduce their level of problematic mobile phone use. Overall, participant feedback for the intervention programme was positive, with participants stating that it was fun, interactive, relatable, and informative. There were still some barriers that prevented participants from reducing their problematic mobile phone use, and suggestions were given on how to improve the intervention programme in future.

This study aims to examine the motivational profiles of Malay students in Singapore based self-regulated learning framework (Pintrich & De Groot, 1990) and self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985). The sample consisted of 740 secondary school Malay students (415 males, 325 females). Using cluster analysis, five different clusters of students were found based on their unique characteristics on self-regulation and learning strategies scores. The clusters were named from best to poor in numeric order. Cluster 1 is characterised by high scores on intrinsic value, self-efficacy, self-regulation, and lower scores on lack of learning strategies and anxiety compared to other clusters. On the other hand, cluster 5 has the lowest intrinsic values, self-efficacy, and self-regulation relative to their scores on other clustering variables. In addition, the more adaptive profiles were also found to score higher in enjoyment and effort, and lower in boredom, compared to other clusters. The findings suggest that intra-individual differences in self-regulated learning behaviour are associated with the expected differences in the type of motivation possessed, and learning outcome measures. Overall, the findings from the study shows that Malays students do possess adaptive qualities known to facilitate learning outcomes.