Papers by Rita de Oliveira
Migration & diversity, Feb 23, 2024
The migration of coaches is a topic that has seen increasing research interest in recent years. D... more The migration of coaches is a topic that has seen increasing research interest in recent years. Discussions are evolving around the factors driving coaches' migration, their experiences, and perceptions held by other sports stakeholders. This study aimed to explore the decision-making processes of coaches regarding migration and their views on the phenomenon. A total of 68 coaches, both with and without international experience, participated in the study. Data collection involved an online survey comprising closed-ended questions. For data analysis, we employed a One-Way ANOVA to draw comparisons across independent variables. Interestingly, coaches with international experience have been more frequently approached with offers than their counterparts without such experience. Nevertheless, the majority of the coaches did not perceive foreign coaches as essential to sports development. Coaches with international backgrounds expressed a belief that native coaches should exclusively coach their national teams. Overall, coaches did not highly value international placements or experience. These unexpected findings have significant implications for coach training programs globally. The results are further explored in the context of the expertise required to work in a globalised sports setting and interact with stakeholders from diverse cultural backgrounds.
European journal of public health, Aug 31, 2023
Research in Developmental Disabilities, Jul 1, 2011
International Sport Coaching Journal
The ability to interact and communicate effectively in different cultural contexts has never been... more The ability to interact and communicate effectively in different cultural contexts has never been more relevant for football coaches because cultural diversity in football has increased in the past decades. Yet, there is a reduced number of institutions that are currently offering cultural training to coaches, and it is unknown whether coaches feel the need for such training. This study aimed to explore the cross-cultural training needs of 115 football coaches with national and/or international experience (M = 13.4 years; SD = 8.53). To maximise recruitment reach, an online survey with open-ended questions was used followed by a qualitative thematic analysis. There were four master themes: cross-cultural training needs in the global football market; cross-cultural awareness is important in football; football-specific cultural training; and training by migrant coaches, no matter how. Most coaches perceived a benefit from cultural training in preparation for international appointments...
Sociología del Deporte
Coaches’ migration has received limited attention. It is important to explore their migration exp... more Coaches’ migration has received limited attention. It is important to explore their migration experiences and how native coaches perceive coaches’ migration because they might have different views on this topic. The current research aims to investigate a) the perceptions of migrant coaches regarding their experiences in a host country and b) the perceptions of native coaches regarding coaches’ migration to the UK. A qualitative thematic analysis was adopted to analyse the data and MAXQDA 11 software was used to facilitate this process. In total, 15 participants residing in the UK were invited to participate through convenience sampling. An online open-ended survey was completed by ten immigrant coaches (six females, four males) with ages ranging from 19 to 44 years (mean = 30.7; SD = 9.04), and interviews were conducted with five British native coaches (four males and one female) with ages ranging from 20 to 40 years (mean = 30.5; SD = 9.15). We found that coaches’ transnational rec...
Acta Psychologica, 2022
When switching between different tasks, the initiation of task switches may depend on task charac... more When switching between different tasks, the initiation of task switches may depend on task characteristics (difficulty, salient cues, etc.) or reasons within the person performing the task (decisions, behavioral variability, etc.). The reasons for variance in switching strategies, especially in paradigms where participants are free to choose the order of tasks and the amount of switching between tasks, are not well researched. In this study, we follow up the recent discussion that variance in switching strategies might be partly explained by the characteristics of the person fulfilling the task. We examined whether risk tendency and impulsiveness differentiate individuals in their response (i.e., switch rates and time spent on tasks) to different task characteristics on a tracking-while-typing paradigm. In detail, we manipulated two aspects of loss prospect (i.e., "payoff" as the amount of points that could be lost when tracking was unattended for too long, and "cursor speed" determining the likelihood of such a loss occurring). To account for between-subject variance and within-subject variability in the data, we employed linear mixed effect analyses following the model selection procedure (Bates, Kliegl, et al., 2015). Besides, we tested whether risk tendency can be transformed into a decision parameter which could predict switching strategies when being computationally modelled. We transferred decision parameters from the Decision Field Theory to model "switching thresholds" for each individual. Results show that neither risk tendency nor impulsiveness explain between-subject variance in the paradigm, nonetheless linear mixed-effects models confirmed that within-subject variability plays a significant role for interpreting dual-task data. Our computational model yielded a good model fit, suggesting that the use of a decision threshold parameter for switching may serve as an alternative means to classify different strategies in task switching.
Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 2021
The aim of this study was to examine the impact of predictability on dual-task performance by sys... more The aim of this study was to examine the impact of predictability on dual-task performance by systematically manipulating predictability in either one of two tasks, as well as between tasks. According to capacity-sharing accounts of multitasking, assuming a general pool of resources two tasks can draw upon, predictability should reduce the need for resources and allow more resources to be used by the other task. However, it is currently not well understood what drives resource-allocation policy in dual tasks and which resource allocation policies participants pursue. We used a continuous tracking task together with an audiomotor task and manipulated advance visual information about the tracking path in the first experiment and a sound sequence in the second experiments (2a/b). Results show that performance predominantly improved in the predictable task but not in the unpredictable task, suggesting that participants did not invest more resources into the unpredictable task. One possi...
Memory & Cognition, 2020
This study examined the effect of instructions and feedback on the integration of two tasks. Task... more This study examined the effect of instructions and feedback on the integration of two tasks. Task-integration of covarying tasks are thought to help dual-task performance. With complete task integration of covarying dual tasks, a dual task becomes more like a single task and dual-task costs should be reduced as it is no longer conceptualized as a dual task. In the current study we tried to manipulate the extent to which tasks are integrated. We covaried a tracking task with an auditory go/no-go task and tried to manipulate the extent of task-integration by using two different sets of instructions and feedback. A group receiving task-integration promoting instructions and feedback (N = 18) and a group receiving task-separation instructions and feedback (N = 20) trained on a continuous tracking task. The tracking task covaried with the auditory go/no-go reaction time task because high-pitch sounds always occurred 250 ms before turns, which has been demonstrated to foster task integrat...
Journal of Cognition, 2021
In this study we investigated the effect of predictability on dual-task performance in two experi... more In this study we investigated the effect of predictability on dual-task performance in two experiments. In the first experiment 33 participants separately practiced a continuous tracking task and an auditory reaction time task. Both tasks had a repeating element that made them predictable; in the tracking task this was a repeating segment, and in the auditory task this was an auditory sequence. In addition, one group obtained explicit knowledge about the repeating sequence in the tracking task while the other group trained implicitly. After training, single-and dual-task performance was tested at a post test and retention test. Results showed that predictability only improved performance in the predictable tasks themselves and dual-task costs disappeared for the tracking task. To see whether the task-specific effect of predictability was the results of task prioritization, or because task representations did not have much chance to interact with each other, we conducted a second experiment. Using the same tasks as in Experiment 1, 39 participants now trained both tasks simultaneously. Results largely mirrored those of the first experiment, demonstrating that freed-up resources due to predictability in one task could not be reinvested to improve in the other task. We conclude that predictability has a positive but task-specific effect on dual-task performance.
Journal of Cognition, 2020
Visual information and prior knowledge represent two different sources of predictability for task... more Visual information and prior knowledge represent two different sources of predictability for tasks which each have been reported to have a beneficial effect on dual-task performance. What if the two were combined? Adding multiple sources of predictability might, on the one hand, lead to additive, beneficial effects on dual-tasking. On the other hand, it is conceivable that multiple sources of predictability do not increase dual-task performance further, as they complicate performance due to having to process information from multiple sources. In this study, we combined two sources of predictability, predictive visual information and prior knowledge (implicit learning and explicit learning) in a dual-task setup. 22 participants performed a continuous tracking task together with an auditory reaction time task over three days. The middle segment of the tracking task was repeating to promote motor learning, but only half of the participants was informed about this. After the practice blocks (day 3), we provided participants with predictive visual information about the tracking path to test whether visual information would add to beneficial effects of prior knowledge (additive effects of predictability). Results show that both predictive visual information and prior knowledge improved dual-task performance, presented simultaneously or in absence of each other. These results show that processing of information relevant for enhancement of task performance is unhindered by dual-task demands.
Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 2019
German Journal of Exercise and Sport Research
Cultural intelligence is the capability of a person to adapt effectively to different cultures. T... more Cultural intelligence is the capability of a person to adapt effectively to different cultures. This capability has been investigated in areas such as management, military, and education. However, there are no studies in sport referring to this capability. It is important to study cultural intelligence in sport because of the increased globalisation resulting from coaches’ and athletes’ migration across countries and clubs. This study aimed to develop the Cultural Intelligence in Sport (CQsport) and examine its factorial structure and psychometric properties; and examine coaches’ cultural intelligence and their perceived cross-cultural training needs. Participants were 209 football coaches either with or without international experience. Participants completed an online survey consisting of CQsport and a cross-cultural training needs questionnaire. We used a multigroup analysis, within the structural equation model (SEM) approach, to test group differences in the CQsport and perform...
Studies of sign languages have been used to test traditional cognitive models of working memory (... more Studies of sign languages have been used to test traditional cognitive models of working memory (WM) that distinguish between verbal and visuospatial WM (e.g. Baddeley, 2003), without considering that sign languages operate in the visuospatial domain. Previous studies have shown that WM mental representations and processes are largely similar for signed and spoken languages (e.g. Ronnberg et al., 2004). However, it is not clear to what extent visual WM processes aid and support sign language WM.Here we characterise the neural substrates supporting sign language and visual WM, and the mechanisms that subserve differential processing for signers and for deaf individuals. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment with three groups of participants: deaf native signers, hearing native signers and hearing non-signers. Participants performed a 2-back WM task and a control task on two sets of stimuli: signs from British Sign Language or non-sense objects. Stimul...
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Papers by Rita de Oliveira
common problems in writing and suggested solutions;
the writing process
function of language (signalling, linking, clarifying red thread, etc)
writing model
instructions for authors
structure of manuscript
structure of paragraphs and sentences
The seminar will consist of analysing and discussing these topics using published articles as a starting point.
Workshop questions:
1) Could driving simulators be used as an introduction to driving in people with DCD?
2) Under what conditions could navigation aids be used to help, rather than hinder, driving in people with DCD?
3) What levels of information processing are more likely to be the main problem with learning to drive in people with DCD?
thesis was to elucidate the visual basis of basketball
shooting. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the
pertinent literature. Previous studies on the topic
focused on temporal aspects of vision and identified
the rapidity of orienting and stabilising head and eyes
on the target (Ripoll et al., 1986) and long target
fixations (Ripoll et al.; Vickers, 1996) as necessary
ingredients for successful performance and
distinguishing marks of expertise. In apparent contrast
to the long target fixations, a more recent study
highlighted the benefits of looking at the target late
(Oudejans et al., 2002). To help resolve this issue we
examined the preferred timing of optical information
pick-up in Chapter 2, the effects of online and offline
visual control in Chapter 3, and the gaze behaviour
during the preparation and execution of the shooting
movements in Chapter 4. In addition to the temporal
aspects of vision, we investigated the information
sources that are used to guide basketball shooting in
three experiments, which are reported in Chapter 5.
The contents of these chapters may be summarised in
greater detail as follows.
In Chapter 2 we investigated the preferred timing of
optical information pick-up and how this depended on
the shooting style used. Our hypothesis was that
expert basketball players prefer to look at the target
as late as permitted by their shooting style. The
employed shooting style determines whether or not
a player can see the basket following the moment
when ball and hands pass the line of sight (mLoS).
Players with a low shooting style can only see the
basket before mLoS, whereas players with a high
shooting style can see the basket after mLoS until ball
release. To investigate when players with either type
of shooting style prefer to view the basket, we used
an intermittent viewing technique and a 3D
movement registration system. We used liquid crystal
glasses that intermittently turned transparent and
opaque (for 350 and 250 ms, respectively). The 3D
movement registration system Optotrak was used to
determine mLoS. Twelve expert basketball players, five
with a low style and seven with a high style,
participated in the experiment. Their percentage of
hits under intermittent viewing was not significantly
different from that under full vision, and was
independent of shooting style. In a subsequent
analysis, we mapped mLoS onto the events defined on
the glasses, and used circular statistics to determine
whether shooting-style dependent timing patterns
were present. The results showed that in the low-style
group mLoS occurred when the glasses became
opaque, implying that the players could see the basket
just before mLoS. In the high-style group, mLoS
occurred near the moment when the glasses became
transparent, implying that the players could see the
basket just after mLoS until ball release. In other
words, both groups viewed the basket as late as their
shooting kinematics allowed. In addition to confirming our hypothesis, these results support the view that basketball shooting is controlled
online by vision.
This view was examined further in Chapter 3, which reports an experiment that we
conducted to determine whether basketball shooting relies primarily on online or
offline visual control. Our hypothesis was that basketball players use online visual
information to execute the shooting movements, in order to insure that performance
is accurate. To test this hypothesis, we employed a visual delay paradigm. We used
liquid crystal glasses that either remained transparent throughout movement
execution, or became opaque zero, one, or two seconds before movement initiation.
A movement registration system (Optotrak) was used to register the movements of
the shooting arm (ring and little fingers, metacarpal area, wrist, elbow, shoulder) in 3D.
Ball trajectories were recorded to estimate the landing position of the ball on the
plane of the rim. Seventeen expert basketball players, eight with a low style and nine
with a high style, participated in the experiment. Both the percentage of hits and the
landing positions revealed marked decrements in performance with increasing delays.
Furthermore, the analysis of covariance coefficients on the kinematic data revealed
that the severity of visual conditions was associated with decreased coupling
strength and increased variability between the arm joints. Even though most shots
still landed in the vicinity of the basket in the absence of vision, accuracy was
significantly better under normal viewing. Although this study does not rule out the
use of offline visual information, it underscores the online use of visual information in
basketball shooting.
In Chapter 4 we investigated whether the gaze behaviour of expert basketball players
was dependent on their shooting style and the type of basketball shot performed.
Based on previous findings, we expected that low-style players would look long at the
basket in the free throw but less long in the jump shot, and that high-style players
would look at the basket after mLoS until ball release both in the free throw and the
jump shot. We invited six expert basketball players, three with a low style and three
with a high style, to take ten jump shots and ten free throws while wearing an eye
tracking system to register their looking behaviour. Looking behaviour was coded for each frame, such that looking at the rim was 1, the
basket’s net or small square on the backboard was .8,
the remaining backboard was .6, other locations were
.4 and no gaze behaviour was 0. Next, we analysed the
gaze behaviour directed at the basket or backboard
before and after mLoS. The results were in accordance
with our expectations. The low-style shooters looked
at the target only before mLoS and for about 1 s in the
free throw but half that duration in the jump shot,
without any repercussions for shooting accuracy. The
high-style shooters, in contrast, looked consistently at
the target after mLoS both in the free throw and in the
jump shot for about 400 ms.
In Chapter 5 we investigated the optical basis of
basketball shooting in a series of three experiments.
From a theoretical analysis it appeared that the
absolute distance between player and basket (d) and
the angle of elevation subtended by the line of gaze to
the basket (α) could be used conjointly to determine
the exact location of the basket. Alternatively, the
location of the basket could be determined by using
either d or α in combination with the height of the
basket, which was always set at the same official
height. In the first experiment it appeared that expert
basketball shooters preserved good shooting accuracy
when d and α were the only information sources
available during movement execution. In the second
experiment, accuracy was maintained upon removal of
information sources related to d, indicating that those
information sources were less relevant for successful
shooting. Finally, we tested the use of α by
manipulating the height of the basket unbeknownst
to participants. Consistent with the use of angle of
elevation, participants misperceived heightened
baskets as being closer and lowered baskets as being
further away. We therefore concluded that angle of
elevation information, calibrated to the official
basket’s height, was used for successful shooting.
In sum, the experiments presented in the present
thesis provided clear insights into the visual basis of
basketball shooting. They highlight the importance of
the online use of visual information during movement
execution and of using the latest and most updated
visual information available. A likely variable that may
be picked up and used to guide the shooting
movements is the angle of elevation, which is
informative about the distance from the player to the
target provided that both perception and shooting
action are calibrated to the official height of the
basket. These insights have broad theoretical
implications, as well as several possible applications,
that are discussed in the sixth and final chapter of this
thesis.