Much has been researched and written on the concept of intelligence in the last century and
while much of it has been applied in educational settings and commercial organisations,
little has been investigated and applied within a sports context. Early research in the 1970s
identified sport intelligence as comprising primarily of reaction time and recall and it was
only in 2002, some 30 years later, that it again appeared in the literature with sport
intelligence being considered a psychological characteristic of Olympic champions. The
research of Gould, Diffenbach and Moffet (2002) into sport intelligence hypothesised that
sport intelligence included having “the ability to analyse, being innovative, being a student
of the sport, making good decisions, understanding the nature of elite sport, and being a
quick learner” (p. 5). Later research by Blue (2009) proposed a comprehensive model of
sport intelligence as it applied to golf wherein he posited that sport intelligence – albeit in a
golfing context – comprised a ‘competition’ and ‘developmental’ intelligence.
Other than the thematic assessment of Gould et al. (2002) and the golf-specific study of
Blue (2009) no literature, data or research was available internationally, on the African
continent nor in South Africa. The researcher responded to the call for further research and
decided to complete a qualitative, exploratory study in South Africa.
The research commenced by covering what was available on sport intelligence literature
and to build on it by reviewing and considering general intelligence theories. Both orthodox
and unorthodox approaches were considered and the review suggested that sport
intelligence would conceptually and theoretically consist of a number of dimensions and
constructs including a series of cognitive processes like memory, reasoning, problem
solving, decision making and other rational processes. The third source of literature was a review of sport psychology and it emphasised the
importance and significance of emotional, motivational and other psychological factors in
addition to the influences of personality.
The literature review led to the researcher identifying 14 hypotheses which were explored
with 15 credible sport participants, whereafter a thorough content analysis of the 14
hypotheses was performed. 13 of the 14 initial hypotheses were accepted with one included
as a theme within another.
The thematic assessment resulted in the identification and development of a systems model
of sport intelligence comprising six components as follows:
A neurophysiological component;
A cognitive/rational component;
An emotional/affective component;
A team/group component;
A societal/ecological component; and
A metaphysical component.
The investigation and analyses furthermore indicated that the components do not exist in
isolation of one another and each dimension seems of equal significance. The data
suggested a parallel process and dynamic interplay between these components and this led
to a systemic perspective being adopted when synthesising the model into a logical and
coherent framework. Each of the components were critically evaluated from a cognitive and
systemic perspective.
The systemic perspective proposed challenges the view that performance is not only an
individual endeavour but also a systemic endeavour. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Consulting Psychology)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/18508 |
| Date | 10 1900 |
| Creators | Rosslee, Garrath James |
| Contributors | Ferns, Ilse, 1961- |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | 1 online resource (xx, 242 leaves) : illustrations (some color), application/pdf |
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