HSE309 Study Guide

Overview

Here you will find outlines of the three modules for this unit. The trimester lasts for 11 academic weeks and each week has associated online lecture content, an online activity, and a seminar. The titles introduce the topics being covered for the week. The dot points give a brief summary of the content covered and should be the key to your study. The detailed content is provided in the specific references from the prescribed textbook and recommended readings. All of which is examinable content.

Module 1: Understanding participants

Module 2: Sport and performance (Psychological skills training and Group processes)

Module 3: Exercise, health and well-being (+ Special Topics)

Textbook:

Weinberg, R. S., & Gould, D. (2024). Foundations of sport and exercise psychology (8th  ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Alternatively, the e-book version can be purchased from:

https://us.humankinetics.com/products/foundations-of-sport-and-exercise-psychology-8th-edition-with-hkpropel-access-loose-leaf-edition?_pos=3&_sid=7fe713cda&_ss=r

Several copies of the book are also held at the Burwood and Waurn Ponds libraries.

Earlier editions of this textbook are also suitable for use, although you may need to cross-reference page numbers.

MODULE 1: Understanding participants

Week 1

Lecture content: Introduction to Sport and Exercise Psychology

• What is Sport and exercise psychology

• What do they do (and what training is required)

• Theory v. practice

Lecture content: Motivation

• What is Motivation?

• Main Areas of Study of Motivation

• Enhancing Motivation

• Feedback and Reinforcement

Online activity: Sport Motivation Scale

Seminar: Motivational interviewing

Readings

1. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 1 Welcome to Sport and Exercise Psychology

2. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 4 Motivation

Week 2

Lecture content: Personality and Sport

• What is personality

• Understanding the 3 main approaches in sport

• Describe how these things can be measured

• Understand key principles when using psychological measures

Lecture content: Arousal, anxiety and stress

• What is arousal, anxiety and stress

• Understand the main approaches to measuring arousal/anxiety, and the strengths and limitations of these approaches

• Understand the key theoretical perspectives on the relationship between arousal/anxiety states and performance

• Explain how arousal/anxiety affects performance

• Understanding the main considerations when advising on arousal/anxiety regulation

Online activity: Trait based personality testing

Seminar: Personality Testing

Readings

1. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 3 Personality and Sport

2. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 5 Arousal, Stress, and Anxiety

MODULE 2: Sport and Performance

Week 3

Lecture content: Psychological skills training

• Psychological skills

• The mental skills family

• Self-regulation

• The three phases of a PST program

• Developing a PST program i.e. needs assessment and performance profiling. Guiding principles.

Lecture content: Imagery

• Distinguish the terms mental practice, mental imagery, visualisation, and motor imagery

• Understand how different factors influence the effectiveness of mental imagery

• Be able to describe the main approaches used to measure mental imagery

• Understand the key theoretical perspectives on how/why mental imagery ‘works’

• Understand when/how to use mental imagery as well as the guidelines for effective imagery use

Online activity: Mental imagery in sport

Seminar: Performance profiling and goal setting

Readings

1. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 12 Introduction to Psychological skills training

2. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 14 Imagery

Week 4

Lecture content: Arousal regulation

• Understand how to increase self-awareness of arousal states

• Understand how and when to use cognitive, somatic, and multimodal anxiety reducing techniques

• Be able to identify appropriate problem-focused coping strategies for dealing with stress when the situation can be changed

• Be able to identify appropriate emotion-focused coping strategies for dealing with stress when the situation can’t be changed

• Describe on-the-spot techniques for reducing anxiety

• Understand how and when to use cognitive, somatic, and multimodal techniques to increase arousal

Lecture content: Concentration

• Understand how the terms attention and concentration are defined within sport

• Distinguish the information processing, neuroscientific and individual difference perspectives of attention

• Describe key internal and external distractors that may disrupt attention and to understand the process of choking

• Describe several of the key sport-based and generic techniques/skills that can be used to improve attention and concentration

Online activity: Athlete examples from the media, concentration techniques

Seminar: Arousal and anxiety regulation techniques

Readings

1. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 13 Arousal regulation

2. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 17 Concentration

Assessment task

AT1 Part A: Media examples due 29th July 2025

Week 5

Lecture content: Self-confidence

• Define and understand the benefits of self-confidence

• Identify sources of sport self-confidence

• Understand how expectations affect performance and behaviour

• Explain the theory of self-efficacy

• Know how to assess self-confidence

• Strategies for building self-confidence.

Lecture content: PST applications and implementation strategies review

• Review of psychological skills and self-regulation

• Developing a PST

Online activity: AT1 support available, sport confidence

Seminar: Imagery techniques

Readings

1. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 15 Self-Confidence

2. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 13 Arousal Regulation

Week 6

Lecture content: Group and team dynamics

• Discuss how a group becomes a team

• Understand how groups are structured

• Be able to describe how to create an effective team climate

• Describe how to maximize individual performance in team sports

• Understand the concept of social loafing and discuss the conditions under which social loafing is more likely to occur.

Lecture content: Team cohesion

• Define cohesion and distinguish between task and social cohesion

• Be able to describe Carron’s conceptual model of cohesion

• Describe key approaches to measuring cohesion

• Understand the relationship between cohesion and performance

• Be able to describe the key principals/ guidelines for building team cohesion

Online activity: Team cohesion examples from the media

Seminar: Attention control techniques

Readings

1. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 9 Team Dynamics and Cohesion

Assessment task

AT1 Part B: PST program due 19th August 2025

Week 7

Lecture content: Leadership

• Define leadership and describe the difference between leaders and managers.

• Understand trait, behavioural, situational, and interactional approaches to studying leadership.

• Explain the cognitive-mediational model of leadership

• Explain the multi-dimensional model of sport leadership

• Discuss the four components of effective leadership

Lecture content – Team Building

• Understand the different approaches and purposes to team building

• Recognise the benefits of team building for sports teams and exercise settings

• Examine how team building impacts team cohesion

Online activity: Motivational interviewing, team building

Seminar: Team cohesion/ Dynamics

Readings

1. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 10 Leadership

MODULE 3: Exercise, Health and Well-being

Week 8

Lecture content: Exercise psychology

• Discuss the reasons why people do / don’t exercise.

• Explain the different theories / frameworks of exercise behavior. Including from an ecological perspective.

• Describe the key individual and environmental determinants for exercise adoption and adherence.

• Describe the different strategies used to enhance exercise adherence.

• Discuss the characteristics (i.e. levels/ settings) and effectiveness of different exercise interventions.

Lecture content: Counselling and communication

• Define the differences between the prescription approach and holistic approach within the exercise profession

• Describe the process of counselling; including formal and informal counselling

• Discuss the four dimensions of counselling

• Describe the integrated problem solving model and activity counselling model

• Discuss the principals of coaching

• Describe the GROW model of coaching

Online content: Counselling and coaching skills

Seminar: AT2 Exercise behaviour change client session #1 Q&A

Readings

1. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 19 Exercise behaviour and adherence

2. Murphy & Murphy (2023) ‘Chapter 2 Attending and listening’ in Hanrahan, S.J., and Andersen, M.B. (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Applied Sport Psychology 2nd edition, Routledge, New York.

Week 9

Lecture content: Psychological effects of exercise

• Describe the relationship between exercise and depression and anxiety.

• Understand the effect of exercise as a treatment for diagnosed depression.

• Describe the relationship between exercise, wellbeing, QoL, life stress, and mood.

• Understand how exercise effects sleep and personality and other benefits.

• Describe the main mechanisms proposed to explain psychological effects of exercise.

Lecture content – Psychological aspects of injuries

• Discuss the role of psychological factors in injuries Identify some of the psychological antecedents that predispose athletes/exercisers to injuries

• Describe the Andersen and Williams model of stress and injury

• Describe typical psychological reactions and adjustments to injuries

• Discuss how psychological factors play a role in adherence to rehabilitation programs and assist the process of rehabilitation

Online activity: Placebo effects in sport and exercise

Seminar: Stress and Injuries

Readings

1. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 18 Exercise and Psychological Wellbeing

2. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 20 Athletic Injuries and Psychology

Assessment task

AT2.1: Case study client plan due 9th September 2025

Week 10

Lecture content: Unhealthy behaviours

• Introduce the concept of unhealthy behaviours.

• Eating disorders and disordered eating in sport: Describe the predisposing factors for developing an eating disorder

• Understand exercise dependence/ compulsive exercise and discuss positive and negative exercise addiction.

• Discuss the issue of bigorexia

• Substance misuse in sport

• Compulsive gambling discussed within the context of sport

Lecture content: Burnout and Overtraining

• Define overtraining, staleness and burnout

• Describe four models proposed to explain burnout

• Discuss the main factors proposed to cause burnout

• Identify the symptoms of overtraining and burnout

• Discuss the phenomenon of burnout among other professionals / practitioners working in sport

• Describe strategies to prevent / treat burnout

Online activity: AT2 support available, Unhealthy athlete behaviour

Seminar: AT2 Exercise behaviour change client session #2 Q&A10

Readings

1. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 21 Addictive and Unhealthy Behaviours

2. Weinberg & Gould (2024). Chapter 22 Burnout and Overtraining

Week 11

Lecture content: Transitions in Sport

• Define a career and describe the different types of sport and non-sport transitions

• Understand voluntary and involuntary career transitions on sport and the potential impact of each on an athlete.

• Explain the four different theoretical perspectives of transitions

• Explain the three different theoretical perspectives in the context of athlete retirement

• Discuss the general goals / objectives of career transition programs for athletes

Lecture content – Unit Review

Seminar – Sport and Exercise psychology case studies

Readings

1. Gordan & Lavellee (2004) Career transitions in competitive sport. (e-reading available on CloudDeakin)

2. Lavellee, Park & Tod (2023) ‘Chapter 26 Career termination’, in Hanrahan, S.J., and Andersen, M.B. (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Applied Sport Psychology 2nd edition, Routledge, New York.

Assessment task

AT2.1: Case study video & reflection due 30thSeptember 2025

Assessment task

AT3: Final exam