The University of Hong Kong

The acquisition of motor skills, particularly by persons who may have impaired motor ability, can be a long and frustrating process. The research outlined here attempts to develop an errorless learning program designed by Maxwell, Masters, Kerr & Weedon (2001) and examines the uneasy relationship between motor learning and verbal instruction. Verbal instruction promotes the use of explicit (conscious) processing in working memory that is unsuitable for the control of complex motor skills. The errorless learning technique prevents the utilisation of working memory causing the information governing motor control to be processed implicitly (without conscious access). Four facets of errorless (implicit) learning require examination to assess the utility of this technique: a) acquisition speed, b) transferability, c) durability and d) susceptibility to disruption. It is predicted, based on previous findings, that errorless learning will prove superior to traditional ‘trial and error’ techniques, but, that the provision of technical instructions will, conversely, hamper skill acquisition and performance. Finally, the refined errorless learning procedure will be applied to children with developmental coordination disorders in order to evaluate it’s effectiveness within the field of specialised/rehabilitative education.

The Competitive aggressiveness and anger scale (CAAS; Maxwell & Moores, 2007) was developed to overcome measurement problems associated with existing psychometric instruments. Initial findings suggest that the CAAS is a valid scale for the measurement of aggressive tendencies (i.e., aggressiveness) and anger in sport, but further validations are required. The first objective will be to provide concurrent validations of English and Chinese language versions of the CAAS through comparison with existing scales that measure constructs related to anger and aggression in the general population. The relationship between perceived (self-report) and observed aggression will be established through a longitudinal observational study of athlete behaviour during competitions (recorded over an entire sports season). Observation is a costly and time-consuming process because aggressive acts are infrequent in most sports. Consequently, long term observational studies of aggression (and other behaviours) are rare in the sport science literature; thus, this study will break new ground in terms of detailed observation of athlete behaviour. The potential to introduce other variables for observation (such as self-confidence and state anxiety) is also available and would allow a comprehensive description of multiple behaviours.

Research Project Overview

Work-Life balance is the individual perception that work and non-work activities are compatible, and promote growth in accordance with an individual\\\'s current life priorities.

This three year longitudinal project (2007-2009) was initiated by Dr Paula Brough (Griffith University, Australia) and is partially funded by the Australian Research Council. In Hong Kong, the project is being coordinated by Dr Jonathan Maxwell (The University of Hong Kong) with assistance from Professor Siu Oi-Ling (Lingnan University) who will also be managing data collection in Mainland China. Data collection will also take place in Australia and New Zealand, jointly managed by Dr Brough, Dr Thomas Kalliath (Australian National University, Canberra), and Professor Michael O’Driscoll (University of Waikato, New Zealand).

The research project will be a study of managers’ and employees’ perceptions of the balance or conflict between their work and non-work lives. The target will be a diverse sample of at least 5000 managers and employees for the survey (1000 participants at each location) and 400 employed parents for interviews (i.e., 100 from each location).

Project Aims

This project will improve the working life for employees via three specific research aims:

1. The validation of a new work-life balance measure. The measure will assess the degree of work-life balance offered by an organisation, as perceived by their employees. The measure has two uses: (1) providing an empirical ‘rating’ of an organisation on their perceived level of work-life balance; and (2) inclusion within a theoretical work-life balance model to predict both individual and organisational health outcomes.

2. The development and longitudinal empirical testing of a work-life balance theoretical model. The model identifies the processes by which work and non-work responsibilities predict health and performance outcomes, whilst controlling for the influence of perceived work-life balance.

3. To demonstrate how employers can best meet their legal and ethical obligations to protect employee’s psychological health by empirically identifying the most influential work-life employment practices.

The overall purpose of this project is to enhance understanding of some fundamental aspects of expert perception by directly addressing these existing gaps in knowledge.
More specifically, the experiments proposed in this project aim to:

1. test the efficacy and generality of the constraints-attunement hypothesis of expertise, developed by Vicente and Wang (1998) to explain expertise in memory tasks, and assess its applicability to another set of tasks in which robust expertise effects have been observed – tasks involving dynamic, predictive behaviour
2. search for, and identify, specific invariants for the perception and prediction of human movement to which only experts are attuned
3. examine, using fMRI techniques, in conjunction with behavioural and biomechanical data, the brain activity underpinning expert perception in a natural task environment so that a process-based account of perceptual expertise can be built
4. differentiate, as best as is possible, expertise effects from those due to experience.

A recent research project completed for Cricket Australia provided evidence that world-class cricket batsmen could be differentiated from their less skilled counterparts, in their ability to pick-up visual cues from the pre-release actions of bowlers. Skilled batsmen pick up earlier information, from the motion of segments such as the bowling hand and arm, which allow them to anticipate the bowler’s intention in a superior manner to non-experts. This project aims to examine whether pick-up of these important visual cues for expert performance can be trained and anticipatory skill in batting duly enhanced. Knowing the most beneficial visual-perceptual training methods can guide the investment of time and financial resources during coaching to enhance batting performance.

Australian Research Council Linkage Project grant of $A365,000 for Evaluating the impact of neuromuscular impairment on athletic skills. [Supplemented by $A222,300 from industry partners the Australian Sports Commission and the International Paralympic Committee. (Total = $A587,300)

Classification in Paralympic Athletics aims to place people in classes so that type and severity of neuromusculoskeletal impairment has minimal impact on competition outcome and success is determined by the same factors as non-disabled athletics – skill, determination and training. To achieve this aim requires evidence quantifying how much certain impairments affect athletic performance in events such as running, jumping and throwing. Currently such evidence does not exist and consequently the reliability and validity of classification is questionable. This project will evaluate the how much various neuromusculoskeletal impairments impact athletic performance. The results will permit evidence-based classification in Paralympic Athletics.