Dans une perspective nouvelle, la présente étude se propose donc d'étudier sur le plan empirique une dimension qui n'a pas été suffisamment élucidée jusqu'ici: l'Orientation Épistémique en Éducation Physique. Son identification implique de vérifier auprès des spécialistes de l'éducation physique en Tunisie, comment se présente l'orientation épistémique de cette discipline appliquée. Les résultats obtenus viennent appuyer les énoncés du cadre conceptuel proposé, en ce sens que, les praticiens d'une discipline donnée reflètent l'orientation épistémique de leur spécialisation. La confirmation partielle de l'hypothèse de recherche soutient que les étudiants et professeurs intervenant dans le milieu professionnel en éducation physique manifestent communément une orientation épistémique à dominance empirique. Chez les deux groupes de sujets, ce mode préférentiel constitue donc un passage, ou même, un va et vient entre l'assimilation de notions abstraites (savoir théorique) et l'expérience concrète (savoir pratique) tant en formation qu'en milieu professionnel. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of success on elite athletes who reached the top in their sport. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with 17 world champion athletes, representing 7 different sports from 4 different countries. All athletes, 11 male and 6 female subjects had won major international competitions (i.e. World Cup, World Championships or Olympic Games) between the years 1964 and 1988. The number of individual wins ranged from 1 to 86. The results indicate that athletes who won at this level, subsequently experienced many additional demands. Most had little or no assistance in dealing with these demands. Approximately one third of these athletes handled the additional demands well and continued to win. Many of the remaining two thirds did not handle the additional demands well and either never repeated their winning performance or took a significant amount of time to do so. Strategies to help prepare future champions to handle these demands are suggested.

Sport teams have been studied in many different ways, however very little research has focused on how learning to become an athlete takes place in a team. Recent research in the fields of business and education have examined the learning process among naturally forming groups called "communities of practice" (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The notion of communities of practice constitutes the major element of Wenger's (1998b) social theory of learning. Some authors have described sport teams as a good example of a community of practice. Based on these comments, this study employed a qualitative methodology to look at the learning process that takes place through the interaction of the members of a team. Twenty-four female varsity athletes were interviewed regarding their participation in varsity level sports. The athletes were asked about their progression from being a newcomer (rookie) to their present status on the team. In particular, participants were asked how they learned to fit into the team and how they interacted with other players and the coach during this process. The results of the study are presented through two articles examining individual aspects of the athlete community of practice. Article #1 examines the role of tacit knowledge in becoming a varsity athlete. Article #2 looks at how newcomers to a varsity sports team move from the status of newcomer or legitimate peripheral participant, toward full participation (old-timer) in their community of practice.

Dans le domaine de la pedagogie sportive un interet particulier a ete accorde aux etudes portant sur les variables du paradigme "processus-produit" telles que les retroactions et les strategies de renforcement emises par les entrai neurs dans des situations d'entrai nement et de competition. Des etudes recentes, utilisant des approches inductives ont fait cependant ressortir certaines perceptions qu'ont les entrai neurs nord-americains de certaines connaissances reliees au processus de coaching. Ces etudes, ont souvent ete restreintes a une population culturellement et geopolitiquement homogene. Toutefois, bien qu'elles aient fourni d'importantes informations sur certains aspects du processus de coaching, aucune etude ne s'est, jusqu'a present, interessee a examiner de tels aspects dans une perspective comparative, voire internationale. La presente etude se situe dans cette perspective. Elle a pour objectifs (a) de comparer et d'analyser les similitudes et les differences relatives aux perceptions qu'ont des entrai neur(e)s internationaux d'origine allemande (N = 17), bresilienne (N = 6), canadienne (N = 12), chinoise (N = 12), et russe (N = 16), des differents types de connaissances reliees au processus d'entrai nement en gymnastique et (b) d'examiner si ces perceptions presentent des similitudes ou des differences selon le sexe des entrai neurs. Les resultats des comparaisons selon la nationalite des entrai neurs ont revele une homogeneite des perceptions des entrai neur(e)s a l'egard de certaines connaissances d'ordre declaratif et theorique se rapportant aux determinants de la performance gymnique. En revanche, les connaissances d'ordre metacognitif, contextuel, relationnel, professionnel et personnel et de type procedural relatifs aux strategies utilisees en coaching se sont revelees comme des facteurs susceptibles de discriminer entre les entrai neurs du haut de l'echelle du classement mondial (e.g., Chinois et Russes) par rapport a ceux du bas de l'echelle (e.g., Allemands, Bresiliens et Canadiens). Les resultats permettent de constater que les styles du coaching adoptes par les entrai neurs internationaux refletent les traits, les valeurs voire l'ideologie de leur pays respectif. Les resultats des comparaisons selon le sexe des entrai neurs ont revele deux importants aspects: le premier aspect consiste a depeindre les prejuges et les stereotypes sexistes et a demontrer que les femmes entrai neures au niveau international disposent des memes qualifications et competences professionnelles que leurs collegues masculins. Le deuxieme aspect refere a la sous-representation de la femme dans le domaine du coaching de haut niveau. Les seules differences notees entre les entrai neurs des deux sexes se situent au niveau du style de coaching et au niveau psychologique, notamment lors de la competition. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a psychometric instrument called the Ottawa Mental Skills Assessment Tool (OMSAT), which attempted to determine the relative importance of mental skills required to achieve levels of excellence in sport performance. A review of the literature of sport psychology experts Anshel, (1987); Mahoney, (1989); Mahoney, Gabriel & Perkins, (1987); Orlick (1980, 1986, 1992); Seiler, (1992) and Vealey, (1988) was completed and served as the basis for the creation of the OMSAT questionnaire. The questionnaire was initially comprised of 14 scales including a total of 113 questions. The 14 scales were further divided into five major areas: (1) Foundation Skills (commitment, belief); (2) Affective Skills (stress reactions, fear, relaxing, energizing); (3) Cognitive Skills (goal-setting, imagery, mental practice, focus, refocus); (4) Competition Skills (simulation, competition planning); and (5) Team dynamics. The OMSAT questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 486 subjects who were divided into three groups based on their gender, sport discipline and athletic level of achievement. Following statistical analyses (i.e., internal consistency, frequency item distribution) of every question, a new condensed version of the OMSAT was formulated. This new version was comprised of 71 questions within 12 scales. Results of the condensed version of the OMSAT demonstrated high levels of internal consistency (alpha levels above.78), and acceptable levels of test-retest reliability (r levels above.63). Mean score differences indicated that elite athletes scored higher than competitive athletes, who in turn, scored higher than recreational athletes in nearly all of the OMSAT scales. Overall, the OMSAT appears to provide a potentially useful assessment and diagnostic tool for both understanding, and potentially, counselling athletes of different ability levels.

An expert system approach (Buchanan et al., 1983) was used to identify and conceptualize the knowledge of 17 Canadian expert high performance gymnastic coaches. The selection of expert high performance coaches was based on multiple criteria. First, a minimum of 10 years of coaching experience was required. Second, each of the expert coaches required a performance outcome measure, and thus needed to have developed at least one international and two national level gymnasts. Finally, each expert coach had to be recognized by Canada's national coach as one of the best in Canada for developing elite gymnasts. By using a qualitative research method based on the traditions of cognitive anthropology (Spradley, 1979) and symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969; Glaser & Strauss, 1967), this study focused on the first two stages of the knowledge aquisition process for building an expert system: identification and conceptualization. The results of the identification stage indicated that the interview transcripts of coaches of males and females were divided into 595 and 560 meaningful episodes of information or "meaning units" (Tesch, 1990), respectively. The inductive analysis process allowed these meaning units to be regrouped into 134 properties, 28 categories, and 6 components. The components emerging from the analysis were the same for coaches of males and females and consisted of: (1) competition, (2) training, (3) organization, (4) coach's personal characteristics, (5) gymnast's personal characteristics and level of development, and (6) contextual factors. The categories and properties of coaches' knowledge varied slightly in number and by their nature for coaches of males and coaches of females. Attempts to explain differences in the categories of knowledge elicited by coaches of males and coaches of females were made in light of the evident age-related and gender specific task differences in men's and women's gymnastics. The results of the conceptualization stage indicated that the coaches' mental model of various situations was built through the assessment of three "peripheral components," consisting of their own personal characteristics, the gymnasts' personal characteristics and level of development, and some contextual factors. The mental model resulting from this assessment guided the coaches for their intervention in the "competition," "training," and "organization" components, defined as the "coaching process." The large arsenal of coaches' organized hierarchically through the difference properties, categories, and components allows expert coaches to rapidly assess situations that do not fit their mental model and, consequently make the appropriate changes. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

A qualitative analysis methodology refined to account for prototypical as well as classical category structure was used in the analysis of interview transcripts from four expert ice hockey coaches. Coaches were interviewed about their knowledge about the process of coaching elite level athletes. The interviews were transcribed and broken down into meaning units following the process outlined by Cote et al., (1993). The meaning units were grouped together and similar meaning units were given the same content label. This process reflected the belief that knowledge was organized in the middle of a hierarchy from general to specific (Lakoff, 1987). Considering prototyping effects in category structure, each of the 64 content labels was compared to each other, and a similarity rating on a seven point scale was assigned by the researcher. Category structures were generated from four non-hierarchical cluster analyses performed on the matrix of similarity judgements between the 64 resulting content labels. The relationships both within and between the categories were examined through an investigation of the distance to cluster center provided by the cluster analysis. These relationships provided insight into the structure, if not the content, of the categories that emerged from the data. The utility of this methodology as a preliminary step towards identifying the categorical structure of the data at hand, and the effect of both basic level categorization of knowledge and prototype effects in categorization were discussed.

The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of occupational demands on partner/family relationships of Canadian elite-level coaches. Twenty full-time national team coaches were interviewed in order to determine the nature of the occupational demands at this level and to examine the perceived impact of these demands on personal relationships. Coaching full-time as a national team coach requires a huge time, energy and travel commitment. Coaches, on the whole, felt that this commitment was necessary in order to perform the job with excellence. Coaching was seen as a passion or an obsession. As a result, coaches did perceive that the demands of their occupation had an effect on their relationships. Effects were described as both positive and negative in nature. Themes such as priorities, family functioning, leaving and returning, role in the family, family involvement in the occupation, partner qualities and the partner relationship arose from the interviews. The underlying question of this study was whether coaches believe that a balance between excellence in their occupation and excellence in their personal lives can be achieved. This question was discussed and recommendations for achieving a balance, through both lifestyle and institutional modifications, were suggested by coaches.

The present investigation had two purposes. First, to examine whether a group of young competitive figure skaters could effectively learn and use mental training skills taught to them during a mental training program intervention. Second, to examine to what extent the skaters could learn and use the three primary mental training skill components from Orlick's heuristic model of personal excellence (i.e., imagery, focusing, and refocusing). A group of 17 female competitive figure skaters (mean age 13.6 years) were divided into two groups--experimental 1 and experimental 2. Measures used to assess mental skills and trait anxiety were taken on three occasions--pre-test, post-simulation, and follow-up. The measures included both qualitative (short-answer and interview responses) and quantitative (Sport Competition Anxiety Test, Commitment to Sport and Self-Control Scales) methods of assessment. The pre-test measures were taken prior to any subjects receiving the mental training program. The post-simulation measures were taken after a simulated competition when only the experimental group 1 skaters had completed the mental training program. Follow-up measures were taken several months after all skaters (both experimental 1 and experimental 2) had received the mental training. Comparisons done between pre-test and post-simulation measures, and pre-test and follow-up measures were used to assess the effectiveness of the mental training program. Results from the pre-test--post-simulation comparisons showed virtually no change following the experimental group 1 training. Comparisons of the pre-test--follow-up measures did show improvements in the skaters' imagery, focusing and refocusing skills. The discussion examines factors which contributed to the mental training program success, aspects of the program found most useful by the skaters, and gives suggestions for future research in this area.

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