High-Performance Coach Survey on Perceptual-Cognitive Skills Assessment & Training

If you would like to take part in our study and you are a high performance coach, we would love to have your input.

Information Sheet&Consent.pdf

Invitation & Study Purpose 

We are conducting research to help us answer questions concerning coaches’ opinions, understanding and knowledge about perceptual-cognitive skills as well as if and how these are trained and the emphasis put on their training. We realize that for Canada to lead the way in training and athlete development, it is important to have a better understanding as to how these skills are viewed and valued within various sports, how they are being assessed, how they are being trained and ultimately how they should best be trained.

We are therefore asking you to take a short survey to help give us some insight into current opinions and practice. It is our aim to get a broad understanding of how perceptual-cognitive skills feature into current practice and planning within various sports.

This is a small part of a larger process where we are synthesizing research evidence about i) various perceptual-cognitive skills that differentiate athletes at various levels of skill and stages of development and ii) the effectiveness of various perceptual-cognitive training methods as well as iii) how coaches approach developing perceptual-cognitive skills training within their practices. Based on current research evidence as well as current practice, we hope to determine potential gaps in current practice and inform future research into current, yet non-evidence based techniques that might have promise for training.

With your initial consent, we would send you an online questionnaire each to complete. We anticipate it will take ~20 minutes to complete. Alternatively, you can click this link to the coaches' survey at the end of this letter.

None of the questions that we ask are of a delicate or intrusive nature and there are no known risks associated with an adult’s involvement in this study. Participation is entirely voluntary, and even if coaches initially choose to take part in this study they may subsequently withdraw at any time without having to give any reason and without experiencing any negative consequences.

All of the answers provided will be combined with those of other coaches taking part in this research across Canada and any information collected will be held in the strictest of confidence. No specific details allowing identification of individuals (e.g., coach’s name or team name) will be included in subsequent publication or presentation. General results will be made available to interested persons, but no information will be provided that will serve to identify individual players or parents/guardians. Increasingly, funding agencies and research publications require researchers to make their data publicly available at the time of publication. If the data of this study is to be made public, it would be de-identified (e.g., names of players, coaches, clubs or teams, and players’ month and year of birth would not be shared). Although it is not impossible for coaches to be identified through the identified sport and their role within the organization, the risk is low with 30 or more coaches with de-identified data. Note that once made publicly available, the data that you have provided cannot be withdrawn.

In accordance with the BC Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), the online questionnaire will be administered via the UBC-hosted version of Qualtrics, which is a survey host that is fully compliant with FIPPA legislation, and ensures that the survey data is kept secure and is stored and backed up in Canada. All electronic personal information will be password-protected and encrypted on desktop computers that are locked in the principal investigator’s research office at the University of British Columbia, along with any paper questionnaires collected, which will be locked in a filing cabinet. Personal data shall not be made available to anyone other than the researchers involved in this study.

If you have any questions or desire further information with respect to this study, you should contact Dr. Nicola Hodges (contact information on page 1). If you have any concerns or complaints about your rights as a research participant and/or your experiences while participating in this study, contact the Research Participant Complaint Line in the UBC Office of Research Ethics at (604) 822-8598 or if long distance e-mail RSIL@ors.ubc.ca or call toll free 1(877) 822-8598.

To access the survey, please click on the link to coaches’ survey or paste this hyperlink into your web browser: https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_42eROR1xV3K0vxX. By completing the questionnaire, you are giving consent to participate.

Kind regards,                               

Nicola Hodges, PhD       

https://kin.educ.ubc.ca/person/nicola-hodges/

 

Contact: Nicola Hodges Email: nicola.hodges@ubc.ca Status: Open