Thesis (Ph.D.)--Texas A&M University, 2003. / Title from screen (viewed on July 23, 2009). Includes vita. Department of Recreation and Tourism Sciences, Texas A&M University. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 182-214).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Park, Recreation and Tourism Resources, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on July 2, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 190-198). Also issued in print.

Approaches to the study of anxiety in sport have tended to rely on the use of questionnaires to assess levels of competitive anxiety. The development of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (Martens et aI., 1982) has according to Jones (1995) led to considerable research investigating the relationship between anxiety and sport performance. Study 1 reported here utilised the CSAI-2 with an additional directional scale to examine individual differences and competitive state anxiety in sport. Results revealed that there were no significant differences (p<.05) between three achievement levels of competitive swimmers (n=89) for intensity scores, however, significant differences were found for cognitive anxiety and somatic anxiety directional scores across levels. Further, unexpected correlations between CSAI-2 intensity and directional scores for several items, highlighted the importance of considering individual differences in the interpretation of anxiety symptoms. Study 2 was based on Davidson and Schwartz's (1976) Matching Hypothesis which claims that interventions, to be effective, must be matched to the individual's dominant mode of experiencing anxiety. Female high level skaters (n=15) were assigned to a control group (n=5), a cognitive anxiety group or a somatic anxiety group based on interview data, CSAI-2 scores, coach reports, and performance at a simulated competitive event. Results revealed that there was no support for the Matching Hypothesis, and that greater attention should be devoted to using methods that allow for a more individualised approach to understanding anxiety in sport. A diary-based methodology incorporating Watson and Tellegen' s (1985) concept of mood, was employed in study 3 with high level Netballers (n=8) and Super League Rugby League Referees (n=8), to examine the relationships between anxiety, mood and sport and other life events for a 4 week period. Results suggested that this methodology can be used to allow data to be analysed ideographically and from an inter-individual basis as well, and helps to place sport anxiety into a broader context in relation to other mood states and life events. Finally, study 4 further developed the use of the diary based methodology by investigating the relationship between mood, anxiety and performance in International Student Rugby players (n=Il). Whilst no clear relationship was found between anxiety, mood states and match performance scores, several interesting findings revealed that much more could be achieved by re-directing focus at what anxiety means to an individual both before and after sport performance. The findings from the diary-based studies are discussed in terms of the need to address the meaning of anxiety in sport, in part, by drawing on the approach taken within existential-phenomenological psychology.

This thesis documents and explores factors influencing the way in which physical education's (PE) contribution to health in the form of health-related exercise (HRE) was viewed, approached and delivered by secondary school PE teachers following the introduction of a national curriculum for physical education (NCPE). The methodology incorporated both quantitative and qualitative approaches. A national survey of 1000 secondary schools in England in 1993 elicited questionnaire responses from 72.8% of heads of PE departments (PE HoDs) from a proportionate sample of schools stratified by type, age range, gender, size, and geographical location. Analysis employed the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SSPS). Case studies were completed in 1995 in three randomly selected mixed sex state schools in the South, Midlands and North of England. Case study data analysis focused on the progressive identification of themes and concepts associated with the implementation of HRE in the NC. The findings revealed that the NCPE's explicit attention to health issues was welcomed although views varied regarding interpretation, delivery and assessment of the requirements. Most schools had adopted a combination of approaches, involving discrete units and permeation through the activity areas within PE, and/or delivery through other curriculum areas. Consensus existed for some theoretical areas although a physiological bias was evident. There was limited evidence of a well-structured and co-ordinated approach to integrating health issues within the PE activity areas, and that delivered in discrete units often had a itnessorientation, reflecting adaptation of the performance rationale underlying the 'traditional' games-dominated PE programme. Conceptual confusion prevailed regarding the multi-dimensional concept of HRE, and the varying relationships between PE, sport, health, and fitness. The expression of health issues in the NCPE revealed limitations to the accommodation of HRE, mismatches between intentions and outcomes, and a tendency to reflect inequitable practices. Influences included school and individual characteristics, contextual constraints and prevailing ideologies. Creative interpretation of the NCPE remains possible in the form of innovative programmes which integrate health and PE, and which challenge 'physical fitness' and 'sport performance' orientations. A committed, comprehensive and coherent approach to health issues is rarely a central feature of school PE. Nevertheless, a 'shared vision' of the expression of health in the NCPE clearly remains desirable and possible.

Thesis (M.Phil.) - University of Queensland, 2005. / Includes bibliography.

No description available.

[From the introduction]:The purpose of this dissertation is to study the development of tourism in the town of Bakau, in The Gambia, to place its development within the general context of socio-cultural changes in the town, and to study and assess interaction between tourists and residents in Bakau. As my fieldwork for this dissertation developed, the main focus of my research narrowed to a study of the youths in Bakau and their interactions and relations inward to their elders in town and outwards to the tourists with whom many youths have regular contact. A large number of youths in Bakau become beachboys or so-called "bomsas" and in this dissertation I focus on the activities of the "bomsas" who assume the role of culture brokers, acting as mediators and innovators in town. I also focus on the level and the types of interaction between the tourists who visit Bakau and the "bomsas" and other residents in Bakau. Finally I consider how the residents in Bakau view tourism and tourists in their town.

No description available.

No description available.

This research addresses the construction of gender identities within the context of Initial Teacher Training in Physical Education within England. The life story narratives of ten female student teachers of physical education arc documented and analysed, drawing upon a feminist theoretical framework informed by tenets of poststructuralist thinking. These approaches assisted in accommodating and explaining the contradictory social positions that the women engaged in, within a variety of discourses, as they constructed multiple, diverse and often contradictory gender identities. The participants consist of ten determined and highly successful women (strong minds) who have much to say about their agency (strong words) yet simultaneously find themselves complicit to a number of traditional gender discourses, particularly in terms of the body - an awareness of which increases during the process of training to become a Physical Education Teacher (trained bodies). Such complexity precludes any finite conclusions being drawn. Rather the thesis engages in, and extends, the discussions surrounding the thcorising of gender, resistance, and agency within teacher training in Physical Education. The stories capture some fundamental shifts in the place of feminisms in post-modemity or high modernity, with a simultaneous use of both, to borrow Giddens (1991) terms, 'emancipatory' and 'life politics' styles of feminism; with gender inequality defined as a collective problem, but with an individual solution. Moreover, a number of gendered inequalities at both the structural and micro-political level are highlighted. In particular, a liberal discourse of equal opportunities appeared to mask the institutionalisation of 'otherness' these women experienced in teaching practice, and supported the cssentialisation of male and female identities. Whilst there aren't tales of radical changes in their teaching of Physical Education, the narratives alluded to their embodied vision, and in acts of naming, the agency they had for telling, constructing and shaping their lives is revealed. As such, the thesis concludes by suggesting that teacher education and educational research need to embrace more explicitly and centrally a framework which considers further, the role of gender in the formation of a variety of teachers identities. Moreover, in developing more critical reflexive forms of teacher education, a number of strategies of intervention which draw upon critical post-structuralist perspectives are outlined.