Kee, Ying Hwa

The study examines the relationships between mindfulness and flow dispositions, through the investigation of differences in flow dispositions between groups of university athletes of distinctive mindfulness characteristics. Hollander's model of personality depicting psychological core, typical response and role-related behaviour is adopted as the theoretical framework (Hollander, 1967). 164 university athletes (69 women and 95 men, mean age = 22.4 years old, SD = 1.84) were clustered into three distinctive mindfulness groups based on their responses on the Mindfulness/Mindlessness Scale (MMS; Bodner & Langer, 2001). Three distinctive clusters formed using Ward's method (Ward, 1963) were as follows : High Mindfulness Group (n = 40), Moderate Mindfulness Group (n = 63), and Low Mindfulness Group (n = 61). High Mindfulness Group is characterised by higher novelty seeking, novelty producing, flexibility, and moderate engagement. Members of the Moderate Mindfulness Group displays moderate novelty seeking, novelty producing, flexibility, and high engagement. Low Mindfulness Group exudes lower in all the four mindfulness characteristics. Significant differences between the High Mindfulness Group and Low Mindfulness Group were found for six out of nine flow dispositions (p < .05) assessed using Flow Disposition Scale -2 (DFS-2, Jackson & Eklund, 2004). Those in the High Mindfulness Group scored significantly higher in balance of skill/challenge, merging of action and awareness, goals, concentration, loss of self-consciousness, and autotelic experience scores compared to the Low Mindfulness Group. The findings suggest that mindfulness characteristics is related to flow dispositions.

We examined whether the momentary induction of state mindfulness benefited subsequent balance performance, taking into consideration the effects of dispositional mindfulness. We also tested whether our mindfulness induction, grounded in sustaining moment-to-moment attention, influenced the attentional focus strategies that were adopted by the participants during the balancing task. Balance performance was ascertained based on approximate entropy(ApEn) of the center of pressure (COP) data. The study involved 32 males (age: M = 22.8, SD= 1.94) who were randomly assigned to the mindfulness or control group. Using difference in pretest to posttest performance based on the medio-lateral movements as the dependent variable, the test for interaction showed that the mindfulness induction was more effective for participants with higher dispositional mindfulness. Participants who underwent mindfulness induction also reported greater use of external focus strategies than those in the control group. Results suggest that momentary mindful attention could benefit balance performance and affect the use of attentional focus strategies during movement control.

This systematic review organizes the literature regarding the influence of contextual constraints on football match action profiles, in order to inform better practice when utilized a data-informed approach towards identifying and predicting high performing football players. Furthermore, the validity of examining “on-ball” match actions in competitive matches as an indicator of performance was also investigated. Based on the studies reviewed, task and environmental constraints were highlighted to be significantly influential on match actions performed, which suggests that recruitment strategies may be more successful if there were a greater emphasis on identifying players that best fit the constraints unique to the team, rather than recruiting the “best” player in the position. Additionally, the ability to adapt and successfully produce goal-directed behaviour in a variety of contexts may therefore be indicative of future high performance. Results from existing studies suggest that match actions performed in competitive matches can significantly distinguish between higher and lower performing teams or individuals. However, given the largely retrospective study designs of existing studies, a shift towards prospective study designs utilizing machine learning or statistical modelling is proposed to increase the practical applicability of theoretical findings.

Objectives: As the volume of mindfulness research continues amassing exponentially, there have been attempts to review works in various aspects of mindfulness research systematically. The present study provides a scoping review via a topic modelling approach to supplement the overall research synthesis effort. Specifically, the objective is to scope the mindfulness research by identifying topics relevant to mindfulness research using the probabilistic topic modelling approach.

Methods: A literature search based on “mindfulness” returned 5,947 bibliographical records from the Web of Science platform (for records up to 20 October 2017).

Results: When the titles and abstracts were subjected to the probabilistic topic modelling approach, 106 topics were revealed. Further interpretation by the research team resulted in a total of 231 Suggested Terms. The terms were further categorised into Condition/Issue, Construct/Philosophy, Modality, Population/Setting and Research Methodology.

Conclusions: The topic modelling process obtained a panoptic view of mindfulness research, providing mindfulness researchers with some indicators regarding the range of topics currently under study. The outcome of this topic modelling effort has been made available at http://mindfulnesstm.github.io/tiddlywiki/Mindfulness_TM_2017.html.