Anne-Marie Elbe

Late specialization: the key to success in centimeters, grams, or seconds (cgs) sports

A controversial question within elite sports is whether young athletes need to specialize early, as suggested by Ericsson et al., or if it is more beneficial to follow the path of early diversification proposed by Côté et al., which includes sampling different sport experiences during childhood and specializing later on during adolescence. Based on a Danish sample of 148 elite and 95 near‐elite athletes from cgs sports (sports measured in centimeters, grams, or seconds), the present study investigates group differences concerning accumulated practice hours during the early stages of the career, involvement in other sports, career development, as well as determining whether or not these variables predict membership in the elite group. The results clearly reveal that elite athletes specialized at a later age and trained less in childhood. However, elite athletes were shown to intensify their training regime during late adolescence more than their near‐elite peers. The involvement in other sports neither differs between the groups nor predicts success. It can be concluded that factors related to the organization of practice during the mid‐teens seem to be crucial for international success within cgs sports. Future research should adopt a longitudinal design with means of drawing causal inferences.

Experiencing flow in different types of physical activity intervention programs: three randomized studies

This study explores whether inactive individuals can experience flow, a rewarding, psychological state, during an exercise intervention and if there are differences according to the type of intervention they perform. Furthermore, the study investigates if experiencing flow is connected to physiological improvements attained during the exercise intervention. The 12‐ to 16‐week interventions included six randomized intervention groups, two female and four male groups performing continuous running, football, interval running and strength training. The results indicate that all six randomized exercise intervention groups experience rather high levels of flow regardless of whether the intervention is a team or individual sport. Differences in experiencing flow, worry and exertion as well as physiological improvements could be found for the different types of sports and the two genders, with the male football group having the highest score for physiological improvement and the lowest score for worry. A connection between experiencing flow and physiological improvement could not be found. Future research should investigate the influence that the participants gender and also the type of sport have on experiencing flow, worry and perceived exertion. Furthermore, it should be investigated whether experiencing flow is linked to the long‐term compliance of regular physical activity.

The Copenhagen Consensus Conference 2016 : children, youth, and physical activity in schools and during leisure time

From 4 to 7 April 2016, 24 researchers from 8 countries and from a variety of academic disciplines gathered in Snekkersten, Denmark, to reach evidence-based consensus about physical activity in children and youth, that is, individuals between 6 and 18 years. Physical activity is an overarching term that consists of many structured and unstructured forms within school and out-of-school-time contexts, including organised sport, physical education, outdoor recreation, motor skill development programmes, recess, and active transportation such as biking and walking. This consensus statement presents the accord on the effects of physical activity on childrens and youths fitness, health, cognitive functioning, engagement, motivation, psychological well-being and social inclusion, as well as presenting educational and physical activity implementation strategies. The consensus was obtained through an iterative process that began with presentation of the state-of-the art in each domain followed by plenary and group discussions. Ultimately, Consensus Conference participants reached agreement on the 21-item consensus statement.

Zur Reliabilität und Validität der Achievement Motives Scale-Sport

Zusammenfassung. In diesem Beitrag wird die Achievement Motives Scale-Sport (AMS-Sport) von Elbe (2002), ein adaptiertes Instrument zur Bestimmung des sportspezifischen Leistungsmotivs, auf seine Testgutekriterien hin uberpruft. Des Weiteren wird untersucht, ob das sportspezifische Instrument AMS-Sport das tatsachliche Sportverhalten besser bestimmen kann als das allgemeine Instrument AMS (Gottert & Kuhl, 1980). Die Faktorenanalyse mit zusatzlicher Parallelanalyse ergab eine Zweifaktorenstruktur, welche der klassischen Unterscheidung von Hoffnung auf Erfolg und Furcht vor Misserfolg entspricht. Die interne Konsistenz erwies sich als sehr gut und auch die Analyse der Retestreliabilitat zeigte akzeptable Werte. Die Validitat konnte mittels zweier Verhaltensausenkriterien (Handballwurfspiel und Golfspiel) entsprechend dem Risikowahl-Modell (Atkinson, 1957) durch Korrelationen mit dem deutschen Sport Orientation Questionnaire (Elbe, 2001, 2003) und dem deutschen Task und Ego Orientation Questionnaire (Rethors...

Urine doping controls: the athletes’ perspective

Urine doping controls have become a part of the daily lives of elite athletes. However, little knowledge is available on how athletes perceive these controls. In order to investigate this question, four hundred elite athletes completed an online survey in which they replied to open and closed questions about their experiences. The results showed that athletes approve of doping testing and that the majority of them are careful to report all substances they have consumed. Fear of a false positive test result despite not having taken forbidden substances is of concern for about half of the athletes, and significantly more for female and younger athletes. Furthermore, a third of the athletes report about experiencing stress caused by urination difficulty during the control, and a smaller group (approximately one out of seven) feel their personal integrity is violated because someone is watching them urinate. In addition, a quarter of the athletes feel that urine doping controls performed at their home are an invasion of privacy. Suggestions for the improvement of urine doping controls as well as for future research are given in the article.

Cross‐cultural test‐control criteria for the achievement motives scale‐sport

Abstract This paper examines the test‐control criteria of the Achievement Motives Scale‐Sport (Elbe, 2002), a new instrument for measuring the sport‐specific achievement motives. The theoretically based two‐factor structure (hope for success and fear of failure) can be proven in the German and almost completely in the English version. The internal consistencies are above .90 in both versions and reveal homogeneity for both scales. The retest reliability also shows acceptable values for the German version. The validity can be shown by means of a behavioral external criterion (team‐handball throwing game) based on Atkinsons risk‐taking model (1957; 1958). Results show that people with high net hope, who are primarily motivated by their hope for success, prefer realistic tasks with 50% probability of success; whereas people with low net hope, who are more motivated by their fear of failure, choose unrealistic or safe tasks. Validity is additionally shown by significant correlations with the Sport Orientation Questionnaire (Elbe, 2001; Gill & Deeter, 1988) as well as the German version of the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (Rethorst & Wehrmann, 1998) as proposed by Elliot and Churchs (1997) hierachical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation. Furthermore, the AMS‐Sport is able to differentiate between competitive and noncompetitive athletes revealing further construct validity.

The Effect of an Ethical Decision-Making Training on Young Athletes’ Attitudes Toward Doping

This article examines whether a training program in ethical decision making can change young athletes’ doping attitudes. Fifty-two young elite athletes were randomly assigned to either an ethical decision-making training group or a standard-knowledge-based educational program group. Another 17 young elite athletes were recruited for no-treatment control purposes. The ethical decision-making training comprised six 30-min online sessions in which the participants had to work through 18 ethical dilemmas related to doping. The standard-knowledge-based educational program was also conducted in six online sessions of comparable length to that of the ethical training. A short version of the Performance Enhancement Attitude Scale was administered to measure the effects of the trainings on doping attitude. Prior to as well as after the intervention, the mean doping attitude scores of the young athletes were low to very low, indicating vehement rejections of doping. The results of our experiment showed that the ethical training led to an attenuation of these rejections. No intervention effect was found in the standard education group. The observed slight increase in the doping attitude score could be an indication that the ethical decision-making training was successful in breaking up the athletes’ stereotypical style of reasoning about doping.

The role of community in the development of elite handball and football players in Denmark

Abstract The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the place of early development in a sample of Danish male elite and youth handball and football players. The sample included 366 handball and football players from the elite Danish league in the season 2011–2012 and a comparison sample of youth players under the age of 12 from 2003, including 147,221 football and 26,290 handball players. Odds ratio analysis showed that both population size and density significantly affected the proportional number of youth players per community and the odds of athletes reaching an elite level in football and handball. The odds for youth player registrations in both handball and football increased in rural in contrast to urban communities. However, elite football players primarily came from communities of high density (>1000 pop./km2), whereas elite handball players primarily came from less densely populated communities (100 to <250 pop./km2). Furthermore, there seems to be a relation between representation of elite and talent clubs in different communities and the probability of becoming an elite player in both sports. The limited number of elite players in both sports from rural communities may be due to national talent development strategies that do not incorporate development support for clubs in rural areas. Additionally, the results of the study clearly suggest the need to include the youth player population to advance research findings in birthplace effect studies.

Athletes' perceptions of anti-doping sanctions: the ban from sport versus social, financial and self-imposed sanctions

Today the main doping deterrence strategy is to ban athletes from sport if caught. This study examines whether Danish elite athletes perceive the ban as a deterrent and how they evaluate social, self-imposed and financial sanctions compared with the ban. Questionnaires were emailed to elite athletes from 40 sports (N = 645; response rate, 43%). Results showed that 78% of athletes regarded the ban as a deterrent. Older male athletes, however, did so to a lesser degree. Seventy-seven per cent, regardless of gender, age, sport type and previous experience of doping testing, viewed social sanctions as a greater deterrent than the ban. Many also considered self-imposed sanctions (54%) and financial consequences (47%) a greater deterrent. Four per cent considered neither the ban nor the presented alternatives a deterrent. The findings indicate that the ban from sport deters doping. Nevertheless, other deterrents seem to affect athletes more. The findings can be used to address future anti-doping education programmes.

ISSP position stand: Transnationalism, mobility, and acculturation in and through sport

The historically unprecedented pace of internationalising sport industry and transnational movement of athletic talent in the last 20 years has heightened the need for developing new competencies in research and daily practice of sport psychology professionals. While academic literature in cultural sport psychology and praxis has been increasing, sport professionals and local organisations seem to give scant time and resources to stay abreast of complex social changes in transnational industry and to the development of cultural competencies. Stemming from the continuing need for qualified athletic personnel to support transitioning athletes and to achieve intercultural effectiveness in daily practices, our objectives in this position statement are to critically review and analyse the growing scholarship pertinent to various forms of transnational mobility and acculturation of athletic migrants, and subsequently provide recommendations for further use in research and applied contexts.