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The importance of the study of the scientific principles of learning human motor skills is evident in that motor learning is a required core course as set forth by the NASPE standards. Applied Motor Learning in Physical Education and Sports goes further than simply providing valuable scientific theories. Authors Jin Wang and Shihui Chen transform those theories into practice in an understandable approach by incorporating case studies and practitioners’ implications, making this a comprehensive authority on the topic of motor learning.

Written for undergraduate students, PE teachers, coaches, athletes and practitioners, each chapter includes:

• an introduction to the imperative theoretical models of motor learning

• case studies and life examples that illustrate theoretical concepts that can be effectively applied to practical teaching, coaching, or motor learning settings

• project topics that integrate theory with practice

• clear illustrations, diagrams, and key components of concepts depicting the main ideas

An in-depth and multiperspectival look at the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal and its roots in the culture of baseball fandom.

In 2017 the Houston Astros won their first World Series title, a particularly uplifting victory for the city following Hurricane Harvey. But two years later, the feel-good energy was gone after The Athletic revealed that the Astros had stolen signs from opposing catchers during their championship season, perhaps even during the playoffs and World Series. Their methods were at once high-tech and crude: staff took video of opponents’ pitching signals and transmitted the footage in real time to the Astros’ dugout, where players banged on trash cans to signal to their teammates at bat which pitches were coming their way. Wry observers labeled them the Asterisks, pointing to the title that no longer seemed so earned.

Astros and Asterisks examines the scandal from historical, journalistic, legal, ethical, and cultural perspectives. Authors delve into the Astros’ winning-above-all attitude, cultivated by a former McKinsey consultant; the significance of hiring a pitcher recently suspended for domestic abuse; the career-ending effects of the Astros’ transgression on opposing players; and the ethically fraught choices necessary to participate in sign-stealing. Ultimately, it links the Astros’ choices to the sporting world’s obsession with analytics. What emerges is a sobering tale about the impact of new technology on a game whose romanticized image feels increasingly incongruous with its reality in the era of big data and video.

This test manual, the fourth in FIT’s Sport and Exercise Psychology Test Clearinghouse, is a succinct and informative resource outlining the conceptual basis of the athlete burnout syndrome and its measurement. The manual delineates the process used in developing the ABQ and provides users with information on the meaning of scores derived from its use.

Comprehensive aspects related to the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (ABQ) are presented and include:
 

• Athlete Burnout Questionnaire and guidelines for administering and scoring

• Conceptual underpinnings of the ABQ: an overview of the burnout construct, the operational definition used to guide item development, as well as a description of how the preliminary item pool was developed

• Review of research using a within-network approach to examine the internal structure of the burnout construct based on the ABQ; plus a description of both internal consistency and stability of ABQ scores

• Discussion of a between-network approach to construct validation by examining the relationship of ABQ scores to theoretically relevant variables stemming from stress, sociological, and motivational perspectives on burnout

• Basic descriptive statistical information that can help users interpret the meaning of scores derived from the ABQ