Expert Performance in Sports

Expert Performance in Sports: Advances in Research on Sport Expertise presents an overview of the critical issues facing researchers who study how athletes reach—and stay at—the pinnacle of their sports. The text will allow you to update your knowledge of sport expertise with the most current research and practical applications for the development of sport expertise in athletes, referees, and judges.

This comprehensive reference reflects both theoretical underpinnings and future directions in the understanding of sport expertise research and is the first book to look specifically at how elite athletes are developed.

Editors Janet L. Starkes and K. Anders Ericsson identify the questions typically asked in the study of sport expertise; they provide a stimulating, scientific debate that addresses the question of whether a general theory of expert performance is achievable; and they conclude with a glimpse of future directions for research on sport expertise.

This new reference answers controversial questions that arise with regard to the training of high-level performers:
-How can you potentially speed up the acquisition process?

-How easy or difficult is it for experts to retain high performance levels as they age?

-How can coaches structure practices to maximize active time and preparation for the next competition?

-What is the role of coaches and mentors who work with elite performers?

-What aspects of performance best reflect expert behaviors in a particular sport—anticipation, perceptual accuracy, decision speed, attention focus, response selection, response consistency, strategy, or others?
With Expert Performance in Sports, you not only can read about sport expertise research but also find out how athletes and coaches benefit the most. “Experts' Comments” at the end of each chapter present the opinions of two world-class experts, Therese Brisson and Nick Cipriano. These experts' opinions bridge the gap between the research presented and its practical applications. Dr. Therese Brisson's academic training is in motor behavior; she also is an Olympic gold medalist, silver medalist, and six-time world champion in ice hockey. Professor Nick Cipriano is both an academic and an international-level wrestling coach. He is a former international-level wrestler and world-renowned coach in freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, and he has coached both male and female athletes from the high school level to the Olympic team.

This is a must-have reference that will challenge researchers to identify both their theoretical underpinnings and future directions in their study of how the best excel at sports.

Janet Starkes, PhD, is a professor and chair of the department of kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. She earned her postdoctorate in clinical neuropsychology at Mt. Sinai Hospital, and she has been doing research in expert performance since 1975. Dr. Starkes is an international fellow of the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education and has served as president of the Canadian Society for Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology (1994), president of the North American Society for Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity (1997), and president of the Canadian Council of University Physical Education and Kinesiology Administrators (1999).

Dr. Starkes has been invited to speak about sport expertise in 10 different countries, and she was keynote speaker on the topic at the World Congress of Sport Psychology in 2001. This is her second edited book in expert performance. In her spare time, she enjoys cottaging, renovating historic buildings, and reading.

K. Anders Ericsson, PhD, Conradi Eminent Scholar and professor of psychology at Florida State University, has greatly influenced the current direction of expertise research. In 1976 he received his PhD in psychology from the University of Stockholm in Sweden, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Carnegie-Mellon University. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

Dr. Ericsson delivered the 2001 Distinguished Scholar Lecture Series at the University of Alberta in Canada. Currently he studies the cognitive structure of expert performance in domains such as music, chess, and sport and how expert performers acquire their superior performance by extended deliberate practice. He coedited Toward a General Theory of Expertise and edited The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Art and Sciences, Sports and Games.