This thesis examined the psychological responses of injured athletes as a basis for designing theoretically meaningful intervention strategies to expedite recovery from sports injuries. The thesis is written as a series of research papers (studies). The methodological approaches adopted ranged from quasi-experimental to qualitative research in a naturalistic rehabilitation setting. The first study reported the development of a theoretically derived psychometric measure to assess athletes psychological responses to injury, initially using exploratory factor analysis and subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis. The Psychological Responses to Sport Injury Inventory (PRSII) comprised five sub scales (Devastation, Dispirited, Attempts to Rationalise, Isolation and Reorganisation). In its final form the PRSII contained 20 items. The PRSII was found to possess adequate psychometric integrity. The second study examined the effects of a goal-setting intervention on injured athletes rehabilitation adherence, perceptions of self and treatment efficacy and the psychological response variables assessed by the PRSII. The study provided support for the effects of goal-setting upon athlete adherence, self-efficacy, treatment efficacy, and reorganisation. However, the hypothesised effects for dispirited and isolation were not found. As a result, a qualitative follow-up study was conducted to more closely examine the effects of the goal-setting intervention. The qualitative follow-up study proposed a number of possible mechanisms for the effects of the goal-setting intervention. These included the effects of goal-setting on self-efficacy, attributions, perceptions of control, and attention. The final, collaborative action research study employed a multi-modal intervention with three athletes rehabilitating from injury. The efficacy of social support, goal-setting, imagery, simulation training and verbal persuasion emerged from the study. The study highlighted the importance of outcome expectancy and goal flexibility. In relation to the re-entry phase of rehabilitation, confidence in the injured body part, and the ability to meet game demands emerged as important to participants successful return to competition.

While it is commonly understood by occupational therapy practitioners that collaborative goal setting leads to increased goal achievement (Sugavanam, Mead, Bulley, Donaghy, & van Wijck, 2013), the current literature shows that people with post stroke aphasia are not optimally involved in the collaborative goal setting process (Berg, Askim, Balandin, Armstrong, & By Rise, 2017; Berg, By Rise, Balandin, Armstrong, & Askim, 2016; Rohde, Townley-O’Neill, Trendall, Worrall, & Cornwell, 2012). This leads to reduced goal achievement (Sugavanam, Mead, Bulley, Donaghy, & van Wijck, 2013) and ultimately less leisure and social participation (Hilari, 2011; Eriksson, Aasnes, Tistad, Guidetti, & von Koch, 2012; Nätterlund, 2010). ClientCollab is a theory-based and evidence-driven online visual supplement to the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM), designed to reduce the cognitive and communication burdens of the COPM and assist the practitioner and client with aphasia in the goal setting process. ClientCollab is guided by research on reading and pictorial comprehension of people with aphasia as well as by the Universal Design of Learning (UDL) theory. The online program is available free of charge at www.clientcollab.net and is designed to be used in conjunction with the COPM to assist the occupational therapy practitioner and client in identifying occupational performance issues. The content of the program parallels the section and subsection breakdown of the COPM and is designed for use during step one of the COPM to assist in the identification of occupational performance issues. The objective of the program is to increase communication between client and practitioner during the goal setting process as well as to increase the number of goals developed with client input. ClientCollab is meant to act as a visual supplement to the goal setting section of the COPM, however it is not meant or able to fully replace the COPM, and must be used in conjunction with the paper or online version of the COPM. In conclusion, ClientCollab aims to decrease the cognitive and communication barriers limiting people with aphasia from completing the COPM in hopes of facilitating increased collaborative goal setting and ultimately increased goal achievement in this population.

No description available.

This paper examines the effect of impression management on goal level and commitment to the goal. Participants involved in a goal-setting program in the United States were asked to complete a web survey regarding their desire to impress superiors and their commitment to the goal. The specific dependant measures were self-set goal and goal commitment. No statistically significant differences were found between high and low desires to manage impressions with respect to goal set, but a higher desire to manage impressions was positively correlated with a higher degree of goal commitment. This finding suggests that triggering impression management is beneficial for situations in which high goal performance is desired as it increases goal commitment. Future studies could verify these results using larger sample sizes and tackle such issues as goal performance.

This paper examines the effect of impression management on goal level and commitment to the goal. Participants involved in a goal-setting program in the United States were asked to complete a web survey regarding their desire to impress superiors and their commitment to the goal. The specific dependant measures were self-set goal and goal commitment. No statistically significant differences were found between high and low desires to manage impressions with respect to goal set, but a higher desire to manage impressions was positively correlated with a higher degree of goal commitment. This finding suggests that triggering impression management is beneficial for situations in which high goal performance is desired as it increases goal commitment. Future studies could verify these results using larger sample sizes and tackle such issues as goal performance.

Goal setting theory has consistently found that high and specific goals lead to better performance than low and vague goals do. However, the independent effect of each of these two dimensions, difficulty and specificity, on performance is less clear. Although goal difficulty has been shown to affect performance level independent of goal specificity, evidence for an independent effect of goal specificity is mixed. In the current research, we introduce a moderator, regulatory focus, of the relationship between goal specificity and performance level. Specifically, we hypothesized that people in a promotion focus would be more motivated by aiming for wider goals that have a higher possibility of success and therefore fit an eager-approach strategy, while people in a prevention focus would be more motivated by aiming for narrower goals that have a small range of acceptable outcomes and therefore fit a vigilant-avoidance strategy. We examined this hypothesis with different hypothetical scenarios that manipulated goal width (wide versus narrow) with numerical ranges (Study 1) and visually with a bar graph (Study 2), and with different behavioural tasks that manipulated goal width in a saving strategies task (Study 3) and an anagram task (Study 4a, 4b). The findings revealed promising trends that were consistent with our hypothesis across all studies.

Titel: Transfer of training – en studie av överföringsprocessen av säljträning med avseende på motivation och målsättning. Författare: Therése Eriksson & Lovisa Söderlund Uppsatsnivå: Examensarbete i Företagsekonomi för kandidatexamen, 180 hp VT-14 Handledare: Lars-Johan Åge, Jonas Molin & Jens Eklinder Frick Datum: 2014-05 Syfte: Vi vill undersöka om och hur säljares målsättningar påverkar säljare att ta till sig säljträning och omsätta den i praktiken. Metod: Med syftet som utgångspunkt har en kvalitativ metod använts i undersökningen där empirisk data erhölls genom att utföra 12 semi-strukturerade intervjuer med respondenter från fem telefoni- och elektronikföretag i Gävle. En strukturerad, abduktiv analysmetod som gör det möjligt att analysera kvalitativ data användes för att analysera och identifiera mönster i materialet.  Resultat: Studien visar att motivation är av stor betydelse när det kommer till säljträning och huruvida säljare väljer att använda sig av träningen. Det som motiverar säljare att använda sig av säljträning är huruvida det kommer leda till ett ökat försäljningsresultat. Vi ser också att motivationen till överföringen är beroende av säljarnas personliga mål eftersom målen har med deras egna värderingar att göra och det är dessa mål som främst driver säljarna. Studien har visat att för att säljare ska känna motivation till att överföra träningen måste de uppfatta att träningen är relevant till deras personliga mål. När säljarna har satt upp sina personliga mål och uppfattar att träningen kommer öka deras chans att uppfylla dessa, blir de motiverade att utföra träningen, ta till sig den och sedan överföra materialet till praktiken. Förslag till vidare forskning: För vidare forskning rekommenderar vi att motivationens roll i överföringsprocessen utifrån andra faktorer än målsättning studeras, för att stärka beviskedjan och generaliserbarheten. Vi tror att det är viktigt att öka förståelse av hur överföring av säljträning kan hjälpa företag att effektivisera försäljningen. Bidrag: Denna studie belyser hur en ökad förståelse kan nås om vad som motiverar säljare att överföra träningsmaterial till praktiska situationer. Vårt bidrag blir att bygga på den forskning som handlar om just målsättningens roll i hur framförallt personliga mål påverkar motivationen och i sin tur överföringen. Flera begrepp, däribland målsättning och motivation har vi lånat från psykologiforskningen för att ge bidrag till forskningsfältet företagsekonomi. Nyckelord: Transfer of training, Motivation to transfer, Goal-setting.

With this study we aim to create an understanding about motivational effect of using centralized goal-setting in multiunit organizations. Multiunit organizations are often decentralized in their structure, allowing units and their employees to have control over their day-to-day activities and decisions. At the same time, the organization requires control in order to create uniformity. A way to impose control is by using performance targets for the units and its employees. The employees are used to being self-directed in their work, and we have researched how this central form of control will affect their motivation.   In order to illustrate this, we have conducted a qualitative case study at different units in a banking and insurance company in Sweden. Goal-setting has increased in this industry, and at the same time, employees have the mandate to make decisions about their daily work at a local level. We therefore argue that using a multiunit company in this industry will illustrate the motivational effect of centrally assigned goals. We have conducted ten semi-structured interviews with sales employees and with two managers of Organization X. Our research approach to this study is of an abductive character, as our process has been back and forth between existing theory and findings from our research.             The mainly intrinsically motivated employees in this case expressed an understanding of the assigned goals. However, they had difficulties being committed to the goals because they felt that the goals were set too far away from their local market. Sales employees in this type of organizational structure are used to have the mandate to control their day-to-day work activities, and therefore it becomes frustrating for them to partly be controlled in terms of sales targets. Centralized assigned goals have a negative effect on motivation for most of the employees, who have trouble accepting and feeling committed to the goals. However, the assigned goals can temporarily trigger motivation to sell certain products, for example through a competition. We argue that the distribution of the centrally assigned goals have to be well communicated and explained to the employees, and that organizations give room for local adjustment of the centrally assigned goals.

Recent research has demonstrated that over time, consecutive high performance goals can increase unethical behavior by depleting one's self-regulatory resources (Welsh & Ordóñez, 2014). In this study, I extend the mediated model connecting goals, depletion, and unethical behavior. First, I propose that the depleting effects associated with a single goal can increase depletion and facilitate unethicality both in pursuit of the goal and also in unrelated areas. Second, I draw from the goal-setting literature to hypothesize that high levels of goal commitment will moderate the relationship between high performance goals and depletion by strengthening this effect. Third, I integrate research related to information processing to hypothesize that because automatic processing influences behavior more when participants are depleted, subconscious ethical priming will moderate the relationship between depletion and unethical behavior by attenuating this effect. A laboratory study is presented to test the expanded model combining mediation and moderation, adding to our understanding of the factors that influence the strength of the relationship connecting high performance goals and unethical behavior. Results generally did not support the developed model and a number of potential limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Thesis (MEd) -- University of South Australia, 1993