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.

Given the need to alleviate sleep problems confronting athletes, the present experiment, conducted as much as possible in a naturalistic fashion that mimics daily life, seeks to examine whether a brief mindfulness induction immediately prior to sleep following night training can improve athletes' sleep. A sample of university athletes (n = 80) was recruited and 63 of them were eligible to participate in this experiment. They were then randomly assigned into experimental group (n = 32) and control group (n = 31). Following night training and just prior to sleep, those in the experimental group received a self-administered brief 6-min mindfulness induction via a video clip, whereas the control group participants viewed a similar 6-min video devoid of mindfulness induction passively. Questionnaire-based measures of training intensity, pre-sleep arousal, state mindfulness, and sleep diary (i.e., level of rest, sleep duration, and overall sleep quality) were administered. Results showed that brief mindfulness induction reduced pre-sleep arousal, and improved level of rest and overall sleep quality, but not sleep duration. Pre-sleep arousal was also found to be a partial mediator in the relationship between the brief mindfulness induction and reported level of rest during sleep. These findings suggest that the brief mindfulness induction may be an effective approach for decreasing pre-sleep arousal and improving sleep quality after night training among athletes.

The experience of loss is prevalent in all sports, but research into the phenomenon is scarce. Comments related to two YouTube videos which featured interviews with Malaysian badminton player Lee Chong Wei after his narrow final defeat to Lin Dan in the 2012 London Olympics were analysed in an exploratory attempt to understand supporters’ reactions and coping of the loss on social media. Content analysis of supporters’ collective reactions suggests that most of Lee’s supporters who posted comments were able to find a ‘silver lining in the cloud’ despite this loss, i.e. signs of coping were prevalent. The following seven categories were identified: (a) providing rationalisations, (b) offering solace, (c) expressing emotion, (d) showing respect, (e) displaying solidarity, (f) injecting humour, and (g) being negative. Insights from this study based on reactions on social media offer a fresh perspective for understanding supporters’ coping strategies in response to sports losses which could serve as a catalyst for future understanding of sport losses in sport psychology.

Grounded in a self-determination theory framework, this study examined the effectiveness of an autonomy-supportive intervention offered to secondary school STEM teachers and their students in Singapore, with the focus on increasing students' perceived autonomy-supportive teaching, motivation regulations, and classroom engagement and decreasing students’ tension. A total of 20 teachers from three secondary schools were randomly assigned into either an experimental (n = 10) or control (n = 10) group. Teachers in the experimental group underwent an autonomy-supportive intervention program and were encouraged to implement their new teaching style for 20 weeks. Students in both groups (Experimental = 295, Control = 251) filled in pre- and post-intervention questionnaires to assess their perceptions of autonomy support, motivation regulation, engagement, and tension. Repeated-measures multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) with follow-up ANOVAs and pairwise comparisons showed that students in the experimental group, compared to students in the control group, reported longitudinal gains in perceived autonomy-supportive teaching (M = 3.58, SD = .86 to M = 3.74, SD = .83), in some motivational regulations (i.e., identified regulation, from M = 3.08, SD = .95 to M = 3.36, SD = .92), and in some types of engagement (i.e., behavioral engagement, from M = 3.58, SD = .65 to M = 3.68, SD = .66). These pilot study findings provide a good foundation to develop an effective and beneficial autonomy-supportive intervention program for STEM teachers. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

Grounded in self-determination theory, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between autonomy-supportive teaching, mindfulness, and basic psychological need satisfaction/frustration. Secondary school students (n = 390, Mage = 15) responded to a survey form measuring psychological constructs pertaining to the research purpose. A series of multiple regression analysis showed that autonomy-supportive teaching and mindfulness positively predicted need satisfaction and negatively predicted need frustration. In addition, the associations between autonomy-supportive teaching and need satisfaction/frustration were moderated by mindfulness. Students higher in mindfulness were more likely to feel need satisfaction and less likely to experience need frustration, even in a low autonomy-supportive teaching environment. These results speak to the relevance of creating autonomy-supportive teaching environments and highlight mindfulness as a potential pathway to basic psychological need satisfaction in educational settings.

Informed by basic psychological need theory, this study was undertaken to examine the relationship between self-reported symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mindfulness, basic psychological need satisfaction/frustration, and smartphone overuse among athletes. Athletes (n = 360, Mage = 20.27, male = 72.5%) completed a survey that measured the outcomes of interest. Path analysis indicated that greater ADHD symptoms were both directly related to higher smartphone overuse scores and indirectly related to greater smartphone overuse scores via need frustration. Higher mindfulness scores were associated with lower levels of need frustration and greater levels of need satisfaction. Mindfulness moderated the positive association between ADHD symptoms and need frustration. Specifically, the positive association between ADHD symptoms and need frustration was attenuated in the presence of higher levels of mindfulness among participants with a lower risk of ADHD. Surprisingly, the same association was heightened among participants with a higher risk of ADHD. These findings highlight the significant role of need frustration in explaining the underlying process from ADHD symptoms to smartphone overuse.

Adapting to a new behavior is challenging when previous habits dominate one’s behavioral patterns. We examined the effects of a brief six-minute mindfulness induction on the acquisition of a new behavior (moving computer mouse cursor with its direction reversed) and the extent to which it disengaged previous habits (moving computer mouse cursor as per normal). Thirty-one participants were randomly assigned either to experimental or control groups. They were asked to perform a computer-based target clicking task during which mouse direction was normal and reversed for separate sets of trials before and after the manipulation. The 2 (time: pre-test vs. post-test) by 2 (condition: mindfulness induction vs. control condition) mixed ANOVA results showed that there was no significant interaction between time and condition for both old and new behaviors. However, significant interaction between time and condition was found in terms of number of mistakes made while initiating movements for the trials in the normal mouse orientation (old behavior). This finding suggests that a brief mindfulness induction may have weakened existing habits. Future studies could examine the effects of mindfulness induction on real-life tasks where performance measurement is also possible, such as text typing, to see if learning to type on an unfamiliar keyboard weakens existing typing habits after mindfulness induction.

Non-computer science students typically find it challenging to learn programming and lack the motivation to learn it. We conducted a piece of action research to examine the impact of adopting the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GROR) approach as we taught programming to thirty-three sport science students in a Taiwanese university over two semesters. Learning self-efficacy, engagement, and burnout were assessed before and after the course. The results showed significant interaction effect between time (pre vs post) and groups (proactive vs apathetic) factors (F(1, 31) = 4.49, p = .042, ηp2 = 0.13) for self-efficacy. Implications of the findings were discussed.

Teachers’ motivational strategies can be categorised into two types of motivating styles—autonomy-supportive style versus controlling style (Reeve in Educ Psychol 44:159–175, 2009). Several factors can affect the teachers’ use of motivational strategies, and student-related factors are some influential reasons. In this study, we focussed on identifying the student-related reasons that could affect the teachers’ motivating styles through 56 teacher interviews from 17 secondary schools across Singapore. From the teachers’ accounts, we identified “student profiles”, “students’ behaviours”, “students’ engagements”, and “students’ feedback” as the student-related factors that could affect the teachers’ motivating styles. By identifying these factors, we hope to raise awareness amongst the teachers (at the personal level) and their social environments (at the contextual level) on what can facilitate or thwart the expression of autonomy-supportive teaching. We also hope to provide useful information on what the social environments can do to support teachers in autonomy-supportive teaching.