Project description
This assignment is intended to assess the following learning outcomes:
Explain how different psychological theories can be used to understand behaviour in sport.
Investigate and discuss key themes in sport and exercise psychology.
Research and compile an academic assessment

Details of the task

Students will be required to work individually to produce and write the text for an academic poster (you dont actually need to design or submit a poster, just write its content). It will be presented in a Microsoft Word document as an academic account of an experiment which is described below. The data from the experiment will be available as an Excel spreadsheet, which can be found on Moodle.

Outline of the experiment
After reviewing an article relating to the effects of music tempo on cycle ergometer performance by Waterhouse, Hudson and Edwards (2009), you have been asked to design and undertake an experiment into the effects of music tempo on the selected cycling cadence of a group of undergraduate students. A group of male and female undergraduates were taken into a physiology laboratory (where normal safety and health checks were undertaken), and following an appropriate warm-up routine, were instructed to cycle, with no resistance, at whatever speed they chose to. A pre-recorded selection of dance music was played in the laboratory the music was all selected because the tempo of the originally recorded music, which was 120 beats per minute (BPM). However, the experimenter was able to manipulate the BPM of the tracks, to play to the people taking part in the experiment at 100, 110, 120 or 130 bpm. In the tenth minute of the cycling trial, the average cycling cadence (number of pedal revolutions) of each participant was recorded. The results are presented in an Excel spreadsheet you will find on Moodle.

You must research the role of music tempo on sporting performance (journal articles on the subject have been written by Karageorghis, and Terry, among others).

The report should be written in the recognised scientific format (Abstract, Introduction/Literature review (including a hypothesis), Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and must contain a correctly formatted reference list.

Individuals who obtain high grades for this piece of work will be required to produce a suitably academic report that reflects an understanding of theory and research in the subject. The research must be discussed in the context of existing sports and exercise psychology literature. The content must be informed by appropriate current academic literature (i.e., peer reviewed journal articles).

Good marks will reflect
Evidence of reading beyond the sources identified
Deep knowledge and understanding of the area of research
Clarity of thought
Word count: 600 words
If the assignment has a word count, the following rules apply:

All words within the text are to be included in the word count. Any work which does not keep within 10% of the set word count will receive a penalty, which will be a deduction of 10% of the marks originally awarded, except in cases where this would take you below the threshold mark for the component. The word count does not include the list of references at the end of the work.

Q. How many words should I write for each section?
A rough guide might be:
Introduction/lit review (which ends with a stated hypothesis for the experiment) 200 words
Methods 100 words
Results 100 words
Discussion 200 words

Useful resources.
To help understand correlations:

Chapter 8 (Relationships Among Variables) in Research Methods in Physical Activity by Thomas, Nelson and Silverman (5th edition, 2005)

To begin to understand the effect of music on sporting performance

Karageorghis and Priests 2012 paper music in the exercise domain: a review and synthesis

Use keywords from that paper, and from the information provided, to find appropriate literature

To account for psychological constructs likely to explain how people are motivated to perform in sport and physical activity, refer to the core text for the module (Cox: Sport Psychology Concepts and Applications)

For guidance on how to write a review paper/lab report, refer to page 209/210 of the Study Skills Handbook by Stella Cottrell (2nd edition).

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