Fifty adolescent ice-hockey players, ranging from 13 to 15 years of
age, were studied in order to determine whether high performance
players differed from non-high performance players on measures of
social cognition in the sport context. Two Divisions of Bantam
hockey players were studied: (1) Division A or high performance
players, and (2) Division B or non-high performance players.
Participants were examined for differences on a measure which assessed
level of Case's neo-Piagetian Central Social Conceptual Structure
(CCS; Case, 1992) and for differences on three measures of
elaborations on the basic structure. No differences were found
between groups in a Multivariate Analysis of Variance, with
participant's weight and Division of play as independent variables, on
the four dependent variables. A Hotellings T2 analysis revealed no
differences between high and non-high performance players of the same
chronological age on Case's CCS. Univariate ANOVAs following the
main analysis revealed no differences between the two groups of
players in Concentration which is the ability to detect advance cues
which would predict opponent's actions. High performance players
demonstrated higher levels than non-high performance players in
Flexibility, which is the ability to provide adequate solutions to
social game problems. High performance players also demonstrated a
greater orientation toward Intensity which is an orientation toward
achieving Mastery goals (Dweck, 1992) than non-high performance
players. Seven factors were obtained in an oblique Principal
Components analysis of the Concentration scale. An ANOVA of Division
of play on the first principal component revealed no significant
differences between high and non-high performers. Number of words
used in responding to the problem set assessing CCS were correlated
with Structural Level (.56, p <.01) and Flexibility (.47, p <.01).
The findings have the following implications for theory and practice
in the area of high performance: (1) structural level, which is
largely maturational, does not account for differences between high
and non-high performers, (2) encapsulated abilities, which appear to
have a high learning component, explain differences between high and
non-high performers, (3) significant increases in performance will
most likely occur as a result of efforts to develop the encapsulated
component of development rather than the structural component.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/10037 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Tench, Elizabeth |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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