• Exergaming has shown to have a positive effect in promoting preschool children’s moderate-to-vigorous physical activity at school
• Exergaming has the potential to enhance preschool children’s perceived competence and motor skill competence
• The preschool year is critical for children’s development of motor skill competence, as preschool children’s motor skill competence increased even after eight weeks
• Preschool boys demonstrated higher levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity than girls did at school
Nicole M. LaVoi, Ph.D., senior lecturer and co-director of the School of Kinesiology’s Tucker Center, was quoted extensively in an article in The Lantern, The Ohio State University’s sports publication, on the dearth of women coaches in sports, despite the progress achieved since Title IX became law in 1972. Many assumed that women’s roles in athletics would grow dramatically in size and scope with the advent of Title IX, but that hasn’t often been the case when it comes to women coaches for women’s sports.
At Ohio State, though, Karen Dennis is the the director of both men’s and women’s track and field and cross country teams. She has been named Big Ten Coach of the Year eight times, leading her teams to six combined Big Ten Conference titles. This month, she will be inducted into the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Her success, though, is not the norm across U.S. colleges. The number of female coaches fell from 74% in 1973 to 51% in 1981. In 1990, the share of women in coaching increased to 59 percent before hitting an all-time low of 46 percent in 2008. For the past five years, the proportion of women in coaching has stagnated at 49 percent.
Lavoi says, ” “I think the stagnation in the percentage of women coaching women and the stagnation of the percentage of women coaching men, which has remained very low for 40 years, really speaks to the fact that men have a legitimate dual pathway into coaching and women don’t.”
Lavoi’s ongoing research published by the Tucker Center in Women Coaches Research Series & Report Card was also quoted.
Kinesiology PhD student Madeleine Orr has just published new research in the Journal of Sport and Tourism with Ingrid Schneider, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Forest Resources.
The article, “Substitution interests among active-sport tourists: the case of a cross-country ski event,” addresses the challenges that climate change presents to athletes and sport tourists. Specifically, the study explores the interests of active sport tourists (tourists who travel to participate in a sport event, such as a marathon, golf tournament, or ski race) when an event is canceled or delayed due to poor weather/climate conditions.
On Sunday, November 11, Tom Stoffregen, Ph.D., professor in the School of Kinesiology, gave an invited presentation to students in the MN FIRST LEGO League Jr., at the U of M’s Bell Museum Research Workshop. The workshop was held to prepare students in grades K-4 involved in the League for a robotics competition, in which they use LEGOs to make gizmos that address a given theme. This year’s theme is to create objects that address challenges to long-term spaceflight, such as travel to Mars.
The purpose of the event was to inspire the participants as they plan their entries. Stoffregen talked about control of human movement in weightlessness, and shared the presentation with Brad Holschuh, Ph.D., assistant professor of apparel design in the College of Design, who talked about spacesuits.
FIRST LEGO League in Minnesota (MN FLL) is part of a global robotics program that includes more than 255,000 kids in 88 countries. Teams collaborate to build and program an autonomous robot for a specific theme and compete in a regional event.
Diane Wiese-Bjornstal, Ph.D., professor in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Sports Medicine Psychology Lab, has been published in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology: Sport Psychology. Her chapter, “Sociocultural Aspects of Sport Injury and Recovery,” discusses the sociocultural influences that affect sport injury outcomes via interrelated sport systems extending from the intrasystem (i.e., within sports persons) through the microsystem (i.e., sport relationships), mesosystem (i.e., sport organizations), exosystem (i.e., sport governing bodies), and macrosystem (i.e., sport cultures). Affected sport injury outcomes include sport injury risks and responses during rehabilitation, return to play, and retirement from sport.
On September 6, 2001, one of the most beloved and respected professors in the School of Kinesiology passed away from an aggressive form of cancer at the very young age of 47. Allen W. Burton, Ph.D., professor of developmental/adapted physical education (DAPE) and motor skills assessment, was an extraordinary scholar and teacher who had the gift of integrating research, teaching, and professional and community service into his academic career. He was a prolific researcher in the area of assessment, motor development, motor learning and DAPE, and well-known throughout the international academic community for his seminal contributions to the literature. He was a revered and sought-after teacher and adviser who was passionately dedicated to his classes and students. Both in his education and his professional work, Dr. Burton recognized the importance of interdisciplinary partnerships in critical research and dissemination endeavors in his field of study.
In honor of Dr. Burton, the North American Federation of Adapted Physical Activity (NAFAPA) has dedicated a new prestigious award to Dr. Burton. The Dr. Allen Burton New Investigator Award will be presented for the first time at the organization’s 2020 Symposium at Brock University in St. Catherine’s, Ontario. The award will recognize “a new investigator who has begun and is very likely to continue making significant scientific contributions to the field of adapted physical activity.”
In her letter of support for the award, Beth Lewis, Ph.D., director of the School of Kinesiology, wrote:
Allen was a dedicated and passionate scholar who selflessly strived to advance the scientific knowledge in Adapted Physical Activity. More importantly, Allen consciously worked towards benefiting the lives of people living with disabilities. Naming the NAFAPA New Investigator Award after Allen will celebrate his life and work. Most importantly, it will offer new investigators in Adapted Physical Activity the opportunity to consider grounding their work on the highest humanitarian values as Allen did.
Dr. Burton received a master’s degree in motor development with Professor Jack Keogh from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a doctorate in motor control and development with Professor Marjorie Woollacott at the University of Oregon. He began his career at the University of Minnesota in 1984 in the Institute of Child Development, and two years later became an assistant professor in the School of Kinesiology. He was promoted to associate professor in 1992 and full professor in 2000 at the age of 46.
The Cooke Hall lobby was the scene of history and memories on October 16 when 15 members of the Women’s Physical Education Alumni Association (WPEAA) gathered for a reception to celebrate a display case dedicated to the remarkable history of the ground-breaking organization.
Members of the WPEAA at Cooke Hall reception
The WPEAA, which disbanded in September 2016, was one of the longest-running student organizations on campus. The original directory dates back to the mid-1930s. The organization, which at various times numbered in the hundreds, was made up of a strong, supportive group of graduates who nurtured young women entering the field of physical education at a time when there were strict constraints on female participation in competitive sports. In the years before Title IX, the group fought hard for equal rights on the playing field. They raised scholarship money by organizing rummage sales and collecting money each year at their annual Homecoming Breakfast. And they stayed close as friends and colleagues for decades after they graduated.
When the group disbanded, they donated a number of artifacts to the School. Carol Nielsen, Kinesiology staff member, created the display case which features a timeline of the history of women’s physical education at the U of M and various items from the past, including a blazer and a pair of tap-dancing shoes. (Yes, Tap Dancing was a curriculum requirement for the program at one time!)
The group ended the Cooke Hall event with an enthusiastic rendition of the Minnesota Rouser shown in the video below–just as they always did at each Homecoming Breakfast.
Madeleine Orr, M.S., Kinesiology doctoral student, and her adviser, Yuhei Inoue, Ph.D., associate professor of sport management in the School of Kinesiology, have published a theoretical article on climate change vulnerability of sport organizations in Sport Management Review. “Sport versus climate: Introducing the climate vulnerability of sport organizations framework” discusses the risk of climate change for sport organizations; reviews the existing sport management literature on climate change; identifies and defines the key constructs of climate vulnerability in sport; and proposes a framework for Climate Vulnerability of Sport Organizations. Orr is the lead author on the article.
Anna Baeth, Ph.D. student in the School of Kinesiology and research assistant in the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, has been awarded an NCAA Graduate Student Research Grant. The NCAA program is a competitive grant process that provides funding of up to $7,500 for graduate student research within the general topic areas of student-athlete well-being and college athletics participation. The grant will support Baeth’s dissertation, “Analyzing the Pathways of Women Head Coaches with a 20+ Year Career Longevity in NCAA D-I Sport.”
Baeth will be researching the decline and stagnation in the percentage of women head coaches of NCAA D-I women’s programs since 1972. Her study will investigate why women with a career longevity of over 20 consecutive years stay in the profession, as opposed to why they leave it. She will use quantitative and qualitative methods to gather and analyze data, and her findings may offer strategies for coaches, advocates, and administrators to better retain collegiate women coaches. Baeth is co-advised by Kinesiology professor Mary Jo Kane, Ph.D., and senior lecturer Nicole M. LaVoi, Ph.D.
“As a coach in the NCAA and a research assistant in the Tucker Center, my aim is to use and promote the results of my study to create a series of research reports and best practice guidelines which organizations and institutions can use to help retain women in coaching,” says Baeth. “My ultimate goal is that, through this research, I will be able to work with the Tucker Center and WeCoach, a branch of the NCAA that focuses on recruiting and retaining women in coaching at the collegiate level, to create a series of workshops for women in coaching which will help provide further supports to help them make coaching their lifelong career.”
Thomas Stoffregen, Ph.D., professor in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory (APAL), was quoted in a Chinese bilingual online publication. The article discusses cybersickness, the digital version of motion sickness caused by cellphones and tablets. Read the translated version here.
The article also cited current research conducted by LaVoi and Hannah Silva-Breen on the number of women who have attained coaching positions in NCAA Division I institutions and hiring practices for female head coaches in general. Their study revealed that Syracuse had only one female head coach in 2017-18, third lowest of the 347 Division I schools in the country.
The conference brings together researchers from across the globe to share their research in movement variability and exchange ideas while exploring potential collaborations.
Nicolas Mendivil presented at the annual McNair research symposium last month.
Nicolas Mendivil, Kinesiology B.S. student, is one of seven McNair Scholars selected to represent the University of Minnesota McNair Scholars program at the 27th Annual National McNair Research and Graduate Fair October 19-21 in Schaumburg, IL, at the Renaissance Hotel. Nicolas is advised by Kinesiology professor and director Beth Lewis, Ph.D., for the McNair Scholars program.
The U of M’s TRIO McNair program is one of the oldest McNair programs in the country. It is designed to support underrepresented students in achieving a college degree and advancing to graduate programs.
As a member of the IEA Student Awards Committee, Smith also presented the K.U. Smith Student Awards of $5,000 each. (K.U. Smith was the first treasurer of the IEA and Thomas Smith’s father.) Award recipients were from the University of Minnesota, Brazil, Iraq and Israel.
The paper subsequently was published in the Volume IV proceedings (Organizational Design and Management) of this congress.
With an impact factor of 2.268, RQES “publishes research in the art and science of human movement that contributes significantly to the knowledge base of the field as new information, reviews, substantiation or contradiction of previous findings, development of theory, or an application of new or improved techniques.” As a member of the Editorial Board, Dr. Barr-Anderson will serve as part of the governing body which is tasked with reviewing and setting policies for the journal.
This year at the Minnesota State Fair, along with the usual extravaganza of food, rides and activities, and displays from across the state, School of Kinesiology research will be happening at the U of M Driven to Discover building.
The Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory (HSCL) will be conducting a study, “Listen to your body: measures of body awareness for kids,” over a period of seven days during the Fair’s two-week run. Researchers will recruit children ages 5-17 years to measure how body awareness develops during childhood. HSCL has developed a set of tests that will show recruits how accurately they “know” where their hands or feet are in space, or how well they can gauge shapes by using their sense of touch. The young participants will get to experience being involved in a research project and earn a fun prize for participating.
The research team will be at the Driven to Discover building, 1367 Cosgrove St., from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. on August 23, 27, 29, 31, and September 1. They will also be conducting the study from 2:30 p.m. – 9 p.m. on August 24 and from 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. on September 3.
“The Minnesota State Fair Driven to Discover building provides a great opportunity for data collection and recruitment,” says Jessica Holst-Wolf, Ph.D. candidate and HSCL lab member. “Speaking from past experience, the families we met at the Fair were really interested in what we are doing and liked the idea of being able to contribute to scientific research.”
For this special issue, the guest editor team invited investigators to contribute original research articles and review articles to stimulate continuing efforts to understand the relationships between physical activity, health and cognitive development among children. Studies that examined the effectiveness of physical activity on various health outcomes and cognition in early childhood and correlates and determinants of physical activity and sedentary behaviors from early childhood to middle childhood were also of specific interest.
The Special Issue includes 14 original articles, 1 review article, and 1 editorial contributed by research scientists in the US, China, and Europe. Gao led the team in writing the editorial for the publication.
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