Your psychological coaching sessions should be focused on
issues or concerns that a sport or exercise participant may be experiencing
(for example, anxiety, low mood, recovering from injury,
choking under pressure, poor performance) and what interventions or strategies
you would recommend they use to resolve their issue or change their behaviour.
Your psychological coaching sessions should refer to
psychological theory and be linked to psychological concepts and be supported
by research evidence.
The following are examples of what a sport psychologist might do:
Help tennis players learn how to
use self-talk to control their anxiety and therefore improve their serving
accuracy.
Advise a rugby team coach how their
coaching style may be influencing team cohesion.
Teaching ski racers how to use
imagery to help them recover from an injury.
Designing and delivering
psychological skills workshops to golfers so they can learn to protect
themselves from “choking under pressure”.
Offer guidance to a coach on how
they can improve their team’s motivational climate.
Offer guidance to an individual
that wants to improve their mood through exercise.
Help an athlete reduce stress
before a match.
Help an athlete control their
nerves during a match.
Offer guidance to an individual on
how they can recover from injury faster.
Suggest strategies to improve
self-regulation.
Suggest strategies to prevent
“choking under pressure”.
Suggest strategies to help an
individual maintain a fitness program.
Offer guidance on how an athlete
can reach their peak performance.
Format
· Start
each coaching session with a description of your case study. Give
details of their situation and background. The more details you give about your
case study, the more you can relate theory and interventions back to your case
study later in the coaching session.
· Discuss
theory relevant to your case study’s problem.
· Suggest
interventions for your case study. Try to link your interventions to the theory
you have discussed and to your case study.
· Include
a summary of the main points at the end. Important. Summarise the problem, what
theory explains the problem and intervention. One paragraph
Per session- You can compare and contrast which
strategy and theory are most important. Critically evaluate whether a strategy
is suitable for client- how might the number of strategies effect the client?
Grading Criteria
Knowledge and understanding- show off that you’ve
done extensive reading- the more detailed understanding the higher mark,
incorporate several themes raised in the module readings
Real world- Links to the case study, state how a
theory made you choose an intervention, why is the theory/intervention suitable
to the case study. Relate to real-world- include a lot of specific details in
case study, create very unique situations- fictional and relate it to specific
theories and interventions. Why a specific intervention is appropriate for the
case study – include details and critical analysis.
Communication- Clear on the problem, intervention
strategies and why. Plus, a summary
Critical analysis- does one theory explain your case
study’s problem better than another theory.
Evaluate research evidence- did this help you choose a specific
intervention? Pros, cons, limitations, criticisms of various approaches,
theories, interventions etc
