originality | creativity | understandingergonomie.cnam.fr/equipe/villemain/14_villemain_a... · the...

Please Do Not Post This Article on the Web!*

To maintain the integrity of peer-reviewed and editorially approved publications in Perceptual and Motor Skillscopyright to this article and all accompanying intellectual property rights. Ammons

institution, as well as personal educational development and sharing of the article with the author’s close colleagues. Any other use, including, but not limited to, reproduction and distribution through paper or electronic copies, posting on any websites, or selling or licensing additional copies is prohibited. This article cannot be used for any commercial purpose whatsoever. Terms of use

posters about the terms of use.

http://www.AmSci.com

ORIGINALITY | CREATIVITY | UNDERSTANDING

Volume 119, N

o. 3 / Decem

ber 2014

ISSN 0031-5125 December 2014

www.amsci.com

PMS_Covers-TOC_December-14.indd 1PMS_Covers-TOC_December-14.indd 1 18/12/14 10:21 AM18/12/14 10:21 AM

PERCEPTUAL & MOTOR SKILLS

Perceptual & Motor Skills is published bimonthly, two volumes a year, the fi rst with issues in February, April, and June, and the second with issues in August, October, and December, from P.O. Box 9229, Missoula, Montana 59807-9229. Sub-scriptions are accepted only for full calendar years. For subscription information, please visit www.AmSci.com and click on “Subscribers.”

The purpose of this journal is to encourage scientifi c originality and cre-ativity in the fi eld of general psychology. It carries experimental, theoretical, and speculative articles and comments. Controversial material of scientifi c merit is welcomed. Submitted manuscripts are all subject to rigorous peer review by out-side experts chosen for their knowledge in the particular topic and/or general ex-pertise in design, method, and analysis. In addition, associate editors who have broad knowledge of various topic areas are asked to review particularly diffi cult, unique, or controversial manuscripts. All manuscripts have at least 3 and up to 20 peer reviewers. Critical editing is combined with specifi c suggestions from mul-tiple referees of each paper to help authors meet standards. For instructions for submitting a manuscript, please visit our web site (www.AmSci.com) and click on “Authors.”

If a manuscript is accepted for publication, there are three possible formats for publication.

Regular articles. These are articles which require three or more printed pages. One- or two-page “brief articles.” This arrangement is useful if a particular

fi nding can be reported completely in this format and will be immediately useful to other researchers in the fi eld. Charge is $35.00 per printed page plus composi-tor fees for tables, fi gures, or equations. Authors may submit supplemental mate-rial for fi ling with the Archive for Psychological Data.

Monograph supplements. Certain papers printing to more than 50 pages are published as monograph supplements. These are distributed to subscribers as parts of regular issues and are also made available as separates.

Publication is in order of receipt of proof from the authors. Author fees are $35.00 per page, plus costs of special composition, e.g., tables, fi gures, and math-ematics. Fees are paid by authors or their institutions.

This journal is supported by a fully searchable electronic database at www.AmSci.com. All articles and reference metadata are submitted to CrossRef for linking to other publishers and databases, so that the materials are accessible to online literature search. It is also the policy of this journal to fi le raw data with the Archive for Psychological Data. Authors should submit appropriate tables with their articles.

Responsibility for address change rests with the subscriber. Claims for missing issues must be made within two months of publication.

SECTION 1: EXERCISE & SPORTPsychological Predictors of Mental Toughness in Elite Tennis: An Exploratory Study in Learned Resource-

fulness and Competitive Trait Anxiety: RICHARD G. COWDEN, DANA K. FULLER, AND MARK H. ANSHEL ................................................................................................................................................ 661

Aerobic Exercise, Ball Sports, Dancing, and Weight Lifting as Moderators of the Relationship Between Stress and Depressive Symptoms: An Exploratory Cross-sectional Study with Swiss University Students: MARKUS GERBER, SERGE BRAND, CATHERINE ELLIOT, EDITH HOLSBOER-TRACHSLER, AND UWE PÜHSE .......................................................................................................................................... 679

Analysis of Physical Activity and Acculturation Among Turkish Migrants in Germany and England: CANAN KOCA AND TENNUR YERLISU LAPA .......................................................................................... 698

Eff ect of Intrinsic Motivation on Aff ective Responses During and After Exercise: Latent Curve Model Analysis: MYOUNGJIN SHIN, INWOO KIM, AND SUNGHO KWON .......................................................... 717

Changes in Heart Rate of Pitchers During Semi-hard Baseball Practices and Matches: YASUHIRO HASHI-MOTO AND KIMIHIRO INOMATA ............................................................................................................. 731

SECTION 2: LEARNING & MEMORYChildren’s Construction Task Performance and Spatial Ability: Controlling Task Complexity and

Predicting Mathematics Performance: MILES RICHARDSON, THOMAS E. HUNT, AND CASSANDRA RICHARDSON ........................................................................................................................................ 741

Eff ects of Inference Demands and Structural Complexity on Transitive Inference Processing: Comment on Lee and Kwon (2013): NAYOUNG KWON ............................................................................................. 758

Vividness and Transformation of Mental Images in Karate and Ballet: DONATELLA DI CORRADO, MARIA GUARNERA, AND ALESSANDRO QUARTIROLI .......................................................................................... 764

How Important Is It to Score a Goal? The Infl uence of the Scoreline on Match Performance in Elite Soccer: CARLOS LAGO-PEÑAS AND MAITE GÓMEZ-LÓPEZ ................................................................................ 774

Anxiety About Speaking a Foreign Language as a Mediator of the Relation Between Motivation and Will-ingness to Communicate: CHIA-PEI WU AND HUEY-JU LIN ............................................................... 785

SECTION 3: MOTOR SKILLS & ERGONOMICSPrevalence and Determinants of Pain in the Ipsilateral Upper Limb of Stroke Patients: YONG HYUN KWON,

JUNG WON KWON, NA KYUNG LEE, KYUNG WOO KANG, AND SUNG MIN SON ................................. 799

A Situated Analysis of Football Goalkeepers’ Experiences in Critical Game Situations: A. VILLEMAIN AND D. HAUW ............................................................................................................................................. 811

Eff ects of Set Confi guration of Resistance Exercise on Perceived Exertion: XIÁN MAYO, ELISEO IGLESIAS-SOLER, AND MIGUEL FERNÁNDEZ-DEL-OLMO ...................................................................................... 825

Does Pilates Exercise Increase Physical Activity, Quality of Life, Latency, and Sleep Quantity in Middle-aged People?: J. L. GARCÍA-SOIDÁN, V. ARUFE GIRALDEZ, J. CACHÓN ZAGALAZ, AND A. J. LARA- SÁNCHEZ .............................................................................................................................................. 838

Relationships Between Cooperation and Goal Orientation Among Male Professional and Semi-professional Team Athletes: JOÃO LAMEIRAS, PEDRO L. ALMEIDA, AND ALEXANDRE GARCIA-MAS ......................... 851

SECTION 4: PERCEPTIONLower-right and Upper-left Biases Within Upper and Lower Visual Fields in a Circular Array Task: IZA-

BELA SZELEST AND LORIN J. ELIAS ........................................................................................................ 861

Evaluating Eye Fixation and Color Contrast Eff ects in the Measurement of Visual Lobe Sizes: Comment on Tsang, et al . (2013): SEUNG-KWEON HONG .................................................................................... 880

Development of the Color Scale of Perceived Exertion: Preliminary Validation: THAIS H. S. SERAFIM, ANDREA C. TOGNATO, PRISCILA M. NAKAMURA, MARCOS R. QUEIROGA, GLEBER PEREIRA, FÁBIO Y. NAKAMURA, AND EDUARDO KOKUBUN ................................................................................................ 884

Aff ective and Restorative Valences for Three Environmental Categories: JOEL MARTÍNEZ-SOTO, LEOPOLDO GONZALES-SANTOS, FERNANDO A. BARRIOS, AND MARIA E. MONTERO-LÓPEZ LENA .......................... 901

SECTION 5: PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT & MEASUREMENTAltered Visual Sensory Fusion in Children with Reading Diffi culties: P. GONZÁLEZ-CASTRO, C. RODRÍ-

GUEZ, J. C. NÚÑEZ, G. VALLEJO, AND J. A. GONZÁLEZ-PIENDA ........................................................... 925

Eff ect of the Recreational Life Review Program on Patients with Dementia in an Outpatient Clinic: A Pre-liminary Study: KUAN-YI LI, WEN-CHUIN HSU, AND LI-JUNG LIN .................................................... 949

Measuring Soccer Technique with Easy-to-administer Field Tasks in Female Soccer Players from Four Dif-ferent Competitive Levels: ARVE VORLAND PEDERSEN, HÅVARD LORÅS, OLE PETTER NORVANG, AND JENNIFER ASPLUND ............................................................................................................................... 961

Classifying Young Soccer Players by Training Performances: EDUARDO A. ABADE, BRUNO V. GONÇALVES, ALEXANDRA M. SILVA, NUNO M. LEITE, CARLO CASTAGNA, AND JAIME E. SAMPAIO ........................... 971

Erratum .......................................................................................................................................................... 985

PMS_Covers-TOC_December-14.indd 2PMS_Covers-TOC_December-14.indd 2 18/12/14 10:21 AM18/12/14 10:21 AM

ISSN 0031-5125DOI 10.2466/25.30.PMS.119c30z0

Perceptual & Motor Skills: Motor Skills & Ergonomics

A SITUATED ANALYSIS OF FOOTBALL GOALKEEPERS' EXPERIENCES IN CRITICAL GAME SITUATIONS 1

A . VILLEMAIN

University of Reims

Research Center on Work and Development (CRTD), Laboratory of Ergonomics, CNAM, Paris

D . HAUW

GRISSUL, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Summary .— This study described elite football (soccer) goalkeepers' activity and performance in critical game situations. The 11 best French players ( M age = 15.5 yr., SD = 0.5) participated in the study. Interviews focused on goalkeepers' experiences were conducted to identify meaningful events involved in failed actions. Players formulated 23 critical game situations. Verbatim encoding using a thematic analysis indicated that four main categories (coming off the line, goal-line clearance, one-on-one, and diving) represented the most critical situations encountered during matches. The relations among experience and action, inner states, background, attention con-tents, and intentions were elucidated. The discussion is grounded on the properties of such critical game situations and their implications for improving goalkeepers' performance.

Football goalkeepers have specifi c functions in a game: they are the fi rst attackers and the last defenders. They often kick or throw the ball in bounds to other team members to start the action, and often are alone as the last defenders in their goals in front of attackers. While they are not fully and directly involved in collective actions on off ense for the team, they are the fi nal critical barrier to the opponent scoring goals, and thus winning or losing a match ( Hazlewood, 1998 ). Because they have an iso-lated position during performance, their practice is very diff erent from that of their teammates. They have to stop the ball kicked by an off ensive player. Thus, the goalkeeper has to perform a coincidence-anticipation task in order to be on the ball trajectory ( Belisle, 1963 ).

A wide variety of research has evaluated goalkeepers' performance and their inner states, strategies, and actions. For example, the impor-tance of concentration has been highlighted in studies showing the spe-cial attention needed by goalkeepers during shots ( Panchuk & Vickers, 2006 ; Bakker, Oudejans, Binsch, & Van der Kamp, 2006 ; Binsch, Oudejans,

© Perceptual & Motor Skills 20142014, 119, 3, 811- 824.

1 Address correspondence to Aude Villemain, UFR STAPS Reims Champagne-Ardenne, Campus Moulin de la Housse, Chemin des Rouliers Bât. 25, BP 1036 – 51 687 Reims Cedex 2, France or e-mail ([email protected]).

12-PMS_Villemain_140116.indd 81112-PMS_Villemain_140116.indd 811 03/12/14 4:36 PM03/12/14 4:36 PM

A. VILLEMAIN & D. HAUW812

Bakker, & Savelsbergh, 2010 ). Anxiety, stress, and arousal have also been found to be crucial to goalkeepers' performance. Robazza, Pellizzari, and Hanin (2004 ) also found that mental training strategies to optimize pre-competitive states improved goalkeepers' competitive performance. Re-laxation and self-talk has also been found to improve goalkeepers' per-formance ( Rogerson & Hrycaiko, 2002 ). Decision-making is critical to goalkeepers' performance. McMorris and Colenso (1996 ) found measures of reaction times and anticipation indicated that players were better at predicting horizontal shots than vertical ones. According to a perceptive plan, goalkeepers' activities require superior movement detection. Savels-bergh, Van der Kamp, Williams, and Ward (2005 ) investigated the visual search behaviors of expert football goalkeepers during simulated penal-ty kicks, showing that eye fi xations on particular aspects of the shooter's body were associated with higher performance.

These studies identifi ed particular psychological and cognitive aspects of football goalkeepers' tasks. But in these studies the activity of the athlete is not considered as a whole, so understanding of the processes involved in performance is fragmented. Little is known about how the component ac-tivities are associated within the goalkeeper's overall performance, as has been assessed in other sports (e.g., Sève, Saury, Theureau, & Durand, 2002 ; Hauw, Berthelot, & Durand, 2003 ; Sève, Ria, Poizat, Saury, & Durand, 2006 ; Adé, Poizat, Gal-Petitfaux, Toussaint, & Seifert, 2009 ). A situated activity approach was the framework used in these studies to consider the global psychological requirements in terms of the elements of performance (e.g., body, other players, physical tools). This situated framework focuses on the investigation of actions and their relations to the meanings of situa-tions, as opposed to analytic processes ( Robbins & Ayedede, 2009 ). Since many researchers have claimed that environment, body, and mind work together, there is a need to develop methods that deal with the properties of activity ( Clark, 1997 ; Robbins & Aydede, 2009 ). While isolating psycho-logical processes, the situated activity approach considers and examines actions as holistic organizations that are autonomous, situation-sensitive, and emergent. In sport sciences, comprehensive reports of athletes' experi-ences in situations have been provided in table tennis, trampoline, sailing, etc. (e.g., Hauw & Durand, 2008 ; Briki, Den Hartigh, Hauw, & Gernigon, 2012 ). Knowledge concerning goalkeepers' inner worlds is sparse, despite the potential value of understanding such intrapersonal activity.

Many prior studies have focused on simulated sport situations, as it is diffi cult to study game situations in a holistic manner. In particular, study-ing behavioral and cognitive responses to critical, problematic, or unex-pected situations can potentially reveal the underlying structure of the players' skills and strategies. Flanagan (1954 ) developed a critical incident


FOOTBALL GOALKEEPERS’ PERFORMANCE 813

technique that was recognized as useful for the analysis of activity from the participant's point of view. This technique has been used in various disciplines such as education ( Griffi n, 2003 ), nursing (e.g., Yonas, Aron-son, Schaal, Eng, Hardy, & Jones, 2013 ), and sport ( Hanton, Cropley, & Lee, 2009 ). One major advantage of this type of analysis is the ability to identify key elements during an activity, the meaningful events evoking the action. This technique, however, typically uses analyses of experiences in terms of positive or negative feelings, tracking how various situations were arising and unfolding. However, a variation of this technique could focus on broad individual experiences within critical situations to reveal how athletes interact with situations ( Hauw & Durand, 2007 ). This meth-od extends the coverage of investigation by considering not only positive or negative feelings but also what is happening in problematic situations. Situated meanings could be tracked in relation to these situations.

Research Goal . Goalkeepers' activity was defi ned in relation to crit-ical game situations during a match. The analysis focused on recalled experiences and responses to critical situations from interviews, in an attempt to evoke the personal details of how functional activity changes and is structured in those situations.

METHOD

Participants Eleven male goalkeepers from the French national football-training

centre volunteered to take part in the study. Sixteen-year-old football goal-keepers ( M age = 15.5 yr., SD = 0.5) were members of a national team se-lection with competitive playing experience of 5 years. Each player was observed by a recruitment consultant and was selected for his match per-formance over 2 years. They had one practice per day: two goalkeeper-spe-cifi c practices and three others with the whole team per week. They played each weekend in a junior national championship. They were considered to be future national elite football goalkeepers and participated in national and international competitions over the duration of the study. Written con-sent was obtained from all parents of participants and local ethics commit-tee approval was granted before the beginning of the interviews.

Measures Data were collected in two steps with each participant through inter-

views led by the fi rst author: (a) identifi cation of typical critical game situ-ations, (b) description of each critical game situation using descriptions de-veloped from interviews. Each participant was asked to identify meaningful events involved in failed actions that had been diffi cult for him during their last match. These corresponded to “critical game situations.” Some players gave several examples of critical game situations from the same match.



Procedure Elicitation interviews were performed for each critical situation iden-

tifi ed, and lasted approximately an hour. The “elicitation interview” is an action-questioning interview. Created by Vermersch, born of a psycho-phenomenological approach, a situation is described action by action, searching for all implicit elements involved so that it accurately refl ects the players' experience ( Vermersch, 1994 , 2003 ; Maurel, 2009 ) To facilitate players' descriptions, questions were formulated using the present tense, brief sentences, and verbs of action. The goal of this interview is to help the goalkeeper recreate past situations and actions and enable him to ex-perience them again. After recalling an action, the participant was asked to describe what was happening at that time.

According to Vermersch (2009 ), elicitation interviews could be called retrospective introspection. The interviewer uses a non-inductive guidance of the experience formulation by trying to evoke past experiences by frag-menting time and actions in questioning. The interview responses reveal how participants had experienced the situations in relation to (a) actions, e.g., “What are you doing here?”, “What are you doing on your line?”; (b) feelings, e.g., “What are you feeling about this action?”; (c) intentions, e.g., “What are your intentions here?”, “What are you looking for?”; (d) thoughts, e.g., “What are you thinking about?”, What are you concerned with?”; and (e) attention contents, e.g., “What can you see?”, “What can you perceive?” For each critical game situation, attention was focused on the specifi c moment defi ned by the player as the beginning of the action and how he acted during and all the way until the end of the action. Dur-ing the interviews, interpretations and generalizations were avoided and specifi c attention was placed on the singularity of the situated experience, e.g., What is specifi c for you in this situation? ( Vermersch, 1994 , 2000 , 2003 ; Theureau, 2006 ). In this way, it is possible to tap the goalkeepers' recollec-tions of their perceptions, feelings, and thoughts during their actions ( Gou-ju, Vermersch, & Bouthier, 2007 ). The interview is not focused on the expla-nation of the critical situation, but rather on describing it.

Analysis After transcription of the interviews, the data were analyzed in three

steps. First, categories of critical game situations were developed. Second, encoding categories of experiences were developed for the most frequent critical situations. Finally, typical categories of experience for each critical game situation were identifi ed.

Creating categories of critical game situations .— A label for each critical game situation was decided by selecting verbs of action during the partic-ipants' reports corresponding to the main goalkeepers' actions at that mo-



ment. For example, the following verbatim comment: “I am in the goal, I can see the off ensive player arriving close to me, I am wondering whether I have to get out of the goal or not…. If I get out and if I am wrong, con-sequences are serious, you know… The goal is empty…” was categorized as “coming off the line.” It represents what goalkeepers have to do and the critical game situation considered (i.e., “I am afraid of doing some-thing wrong”). Sometimes goalkeepers mentioned several critical situa-tions from the same match.

Encoding categories of experiences for most frequent critical game situa-tions .— During elicitation interviews, the players were asked to describe in depth their experiences in each critical game situation. The verbatim of the elicitation interviews was encoded using categories of situated expe-riences used in previous research (e.g., Vermersch, Martinez, Marty, Mau-rel, & Faingold, 2003 ; Mouchet, 2005 ). Five main categories were used: (a) main topic, (b) actions, (c) attention contents, (d) background, and (e) inner states. The main topic corresponded to the goal the participant wanted to reach (e.g., “Currently I want to…,” “my main objective is to…,” “the most important for me currently is to… .” The actions were the means used by participants to reach their goal or main topic. This category corresponded to motor actions on the pitch (e.g., “I am running faster…,” “I am leaving my goal…”) and cognitive actions linked to the participant's refl ection (e.g., “I am currently telling myself that…,” “now I decide to… ”). The attention contents corresponded to the focus in relation to perceptions, the feeling of intuition (e.g., “I can see…,” “I know that he is about to kick the ball…,” “I feel that it is hard to… ”). The background corresponded to the mobilized knowledge during the action (e.g., game logic, rules, strategies, and person-al experiences). The background can be located in previous actions within the same game sequence or during match preparation (e.g., “I have to assess the ball trajectory”). The inner states corresponded to the participant's emo-tion and to his body's involvement during the match (e.g., “slowness,” “lack of energy,” “tension,” “I am worried that…,” or “I am pleased with… ”).

Using a thematic analysis ( Corbin & Strauss, 2008 ), frequencies of cat-egories for each critical game situation mentioned by the goalkeepers was counted as follows. Frequencies of statements in each category were cal-culated for each critical situation and summed over participants. Then the critical situations were ranked according to the summed frequencies.

Identifying typical categories of experience for each critical game situation .— A search for typical categories of experience was performed as follows, in order to characterize the critical game situations in terms of the most representative elements of experiences in each of the fi ve main categories (intentions, action, attention contents, background, and inner states). For each critical game situation, frequencies of statements classifi ed into the



fi ve categories of experience were summed over participants. Then these frequencies were ranked per category. This yielded a characteristic experi-ential profi le for each category.

Reliability of the Data and Analysis Two investigators analyzed material following the procedures recom-

mended by Miles and Huberman (1994 ). Each investigator read the tran-scripts and individually encoded them following the three-step procedure described above. The reliability between judges was verifi ed for each step. The agreement rate was 100% for the fi rst step and 80% for the second and third steps. Discrepancies were discussed until agreed upon.

RESULTS The results are presented in two parts: (a) identifi cation and ranking

of typical critical game situations encountered during matches by goal-keepers, and (b) descriptive profi les of goalkeepers' experience of critical game situations.

Football Goalkeepers' Critical Game Situations Although players were asked to describe critical game situations experi-

enced during their last match, a total of 23 critical situations were mentioned. Those 23 critical game situations were ranked into four typical critical situa-tions: coming off the line, goal-line clearances, one-on-one, and diving were formulated as recurrent critical game situations for goalkeepers.

Coming off the line represented the main critical game situation for all goalkeepers and was mentioned by all goalkeepers. Goal-line clearance and one-on-one were also mentioned as recurrent critical situations for fi ve of eleven players. Diving was reported only twice as a critical game situation. Other critical situations were mentioned only once, e.g., pres-ence of supporters or communication with teammates, but were not in-cluded because they were not directly related to the players' activities.

Description of Typical Categories of Goalkeepers' Experiences in Critical Game Situations

A global descriptive profi le of goalkeepers' experiences in relation to their critical game situations is shown in Fig. 1 . The results indicate that experiences related to actions, inner states, background, attention con-tents, and intentions had typical elements. Regarding actions, the typical descriptions were related to position (e.g., body, feet, or hands position), moving (e.g., placements and moves in the goal area, stability, dynamism, or speed), communication, timing, and observation (e.g., passive wait-ing). Regarding inner states: doubts, hesitations, fear of physical contact, of making decisions, not feeling strong or ready, lack of conviction, and precipitation were typical and were linked to a feeling of low self-confi -



dence and lack of aggressiveness (regarding coming off the line and goal-line clearance) as well as low concentration (for one-on-one). Concerning background, the elements reported were an ineffi cient preparation of ac-tion (e.g., position preparation in the goal and hands preparation), and the collection of information during the match (e.g., on ball trajectory, speed and depth of the ball, the defense teammates’ position, spatial and tem-poral marks) appeared to be the common features. Regarding attention, the main preoccupations mentioned involved information collected dur-ing the observation of the opponent players such as movement, position,

Football Goalkeepers’ Critical Game

Situations

Coming off the line Goal-line clearance

One-on-one Diving

INTENTIONS

Do not miss the ball

INNER STATES

Doubts, hesitation, fear of making decisions, or physical contact

Don’t feel strong, ready No conviction, feeling rushed

BACKGROUND

Action preparation Take information on ball trajectory, speed, depth,

teammate defense position, spatial & temporal markers

ACTIONS

Position (hands, feet, body) Moves (dynamism, stability, speed)

Communication Timing observation

ATTENTION CONTENTS

Looking at opponents, positions, moves, players’ builds & size

Looking at where to pass the ball

FIG. 1. Descriptive profi le of goalkeepers' experiences in critical game situations



build, size, and looking where to pass the ball before their action. For in-tentions, the purpose to not miss the ball was systematically part of each critical game situation.

DISCUSSION The intent of this study was to characterize goalkeepers' typical expe-

riences with relation to their self-chosen critical game situations. Results indicated that these situations could be clearly defi ned and documented by goalkeepers. They defi ned four critical game situations, which were ranked and identifi ed as typical categories. These results could be ana-lyzed as a form of perception of the game's purpose grounded in practice, personal refl ections, intentions, or activities aimed at enhancing the under-standing of performance and interactions with teammates. They partly de-scribed what it means to “be a goalkeeper” in relation to the defi nition of critical game situations or diffi culties experienced in a match. These mean-ingful elements refl ected singular episodes of their goalkeeping careers. They did not have the same past experiences despite the homogeneity of the group of goalkeepers. However, they shared similar global experiences about what was diffi cult or had emotionally aff ected them; thus, what was identifi ed represents common soccer cultural situations and experiences for expert goalkeepers ( Bruner, 1991 ; Strayer, 2002 ). It also refl ects the com-mon problems at this level of performance: the participants were talented goalkeepers at a national training centre, but still in the process of devel-opment or learning. The analysis of critical game situation experiences re-fl ected what were their “timing” competencies and diffi culties, similarly described for elite trampolinists by Hauw and Durand (2007 ).

Results showed that these critical game situations were composed of three elements. The fi rst element is embedded in the situation specifi city and comprises improperly executed actions and hesitation, as well as a global form of insuffi cient timing involvement. This element indicates the importance of concentration or self-confi dence. This result confi rmed the general idea that sport performance or actions in general implies reaching a specifi c level of involvement such as focus, attention ( Cox, 2012 ), being better situated, and “presence” in the world of action ( Clark, 1997 ). The second element is the temporal delimitation of the beginning of the critical game situations. The collection of goalkeepers' experiences described in-complete or insuffi cient observation of the meaningful components pres-ent in their environment. These results also support cognitive research on expertise indicating that performance is the result of processing relevant information ( Williams & Davids, 1998 ). The third element is the projec-tion towards a potential future. The goalkeepers described the experience of losing the ball or an expectation thereof. Once again, the experience



was embedded in a global feeling about the possible outcomes, giving meaning to the actual experience; this could be an example of Atance and O'Neill's (2005 ) concept of episodic future thinking , defi ned as a projection of oneself into the future to pre-experience an event.

These results were similar to previous analyses of elite athletes' sit-uated experiences delineating typical and singular sequences of activity breakdowns that were meaningful during table tennis ( Sève, et al ., 2002 ), a succession of moves in trampoline ( Hauw, et al ., 2003 ; Hauw & Durand, 2004 ), or ski jumps ( Hauw, Renault, & Durand, 2008 ). Additionally, a criti-cal point to make is that the results observed in diffi cult situations during acrobatic performance ( Hauw & Durand, 2007 ), for the analysis of nega-tive momentum in sport ( Briki, Den Hartigh, Hauw, & Gernigon, 2011 ; Briki, et al ., 2012 ), or here in the critical game situations for goalkeepers, cannot be reduced to local cognitive or physical problems. They must be considered within a more global analysis that links all these cognitive, physical, bodily, and environmental elements. Only in the actual game sit-uation would such problems occur.

Coming Off the Line as the Main Critical Game Situation The results showed that coming off the line is a major critical game

situation for goalkeepers. At that time, players move away from their area, so their emotional valence of the situation changes. The criticism part of this situation is fi rst experienced as an emotional stance and appraisal (e.g., Damasio, 1994 ). The area they left led to the emergence of a risky zone of activity, which required psychological skills such as a high level of concentration, aggressiveness, or self-confi dence, but also energetic motor actions (i.e., moving fast, being ready to go) and cognitive resources (i.e., short reaction time, good timing, fast information collection). This result supports research in risky situations showing that awareness is the major resource used to face these situations. For example, research on trampo-lining showed that elite athletes took into account the question of risk by developing specifi c organization of their activity that embedded two main concerns: ensuring the viability of the ongoing activity in terms of perfor-mance (meeting criteria) and preserving the safety of the activity (main-taining various forms and levels of supervision of the unfolding situation) (e.g., Hauw & Durand, 2004 , 2007 ). In such elite sport situations, the activ-ity is conducted with the hidden thought that there will be a much more diffi cult zone of defensive activity to cover in case of mistakes. These re-sults add a new dimension for understanding the experience in these criti-cal situations that corresponds to a form of projection into the future, i.e., present in the athletes' mind at that very moment [i.e., Atance and O'Neil's (2005 ) episodic future thinking]. For the goalkeepers, it would be as if they



gave the attackers the possibility to win by off ering them a very favorable possibility to score a goal. Thus, the “being there” experience is tightly constrained by future possibilities ( Clark, 1997 ).

In contrast, less highly ranked critical situations were goal-line clear-ance and one-on-one, followed by communication and diving. These re-sults suggested that the safety zone of activity could be less fragile in these cases, and thus discrepancy emotions did not mark the experience (i.e., Damasio, 1994 ). The goalkeepers stayed in a more controlled area, closer to the line of their goals. The question of timing was posed diff erently—only depending on the situation as an outcome involving neither the ball nor the teammate. In these situations, the result is the outcome and the risk ap-praisal was low: there was no potentially favorable situation for attackers.

To sum up, the results demonstrated that critical game experiences in football are associated with a specifi c and meaningful situation represent-ed by the distance to the goal line. Coming off the line could be contrasted with other critical situations in terms of the dilemma to solve: acting on at this moment or waiting. This result is similar to those observed in other sports such as in elite trampolining, where the experience is also linked to physical meaning—the height of the jump and the distance to the center of the trampoline (e.g., Hauw, et al ., 2003)—or the moment when oars enter water in rowing ( Sève, Nordez, Poizat, & Saury, 2013 ).

Limitations From a methodological point of view, the diffi culties and challenges of

a retrospective design should be emphasized. The concrete cases used to frame the interviews and the interviewers' continuous check of the goal-keepers' descriptions mitigate these traditional limitations. Several limita-tions could be addressed regarding the possibility of capturing the entire experience using a single sequence of interviews. The goalkeepers' experi-ence is undoubtedly deeper than the examples collected in this research.

Several perspectives could be proposed such as multiple and online collection of information as formulated in the Experience Sampling Meth-od ( Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1983 ), or the Ecological Momentary As-sessment ( Stone & Shiff man, 1994 ). Other information could be also add-ed to these data collections in relation to coaches' experiences of the same situation and third-person analyses of performance ( Varela & Shear, 1999 ).

Practical Implications Three practical implications could be highlighted. First, the results

showed the importance of taking into account mind or thoughts, actions, and context (by detailing their interactions and their dynamics) in order to understand critical game situations and, by extension, athletes' activity during performance. Methodological tools such as elicitation interviews al-



lowed the possibility to associate inner states and technical/tactical actions to personal experience ( Gouju, et al ., 2007 ). For performance analysis, the benefi t is to provide elements that enhance and inform the work of coach-es and psychological consultants with respect to athletes' feelings. This ap-proach was developed in France in the national football goalkeepers’ cen-tre ( Villemain, 2009 ), as has been done in other sports (e.g., Hauw, 2009 ).

Results showed that enhancing performance techniques should not be limited by sport psychologists to strictly mental skills. Because the ac-tivity emerged from the interaction of these diff erent elements, one way to improve performance will be to help athletes organize more effi cient pro-cessing of diff erent information streams. Thus, training could be orient-ed not only on psychological skills ( Robazza, et al ., 2004 ), but also on the ways those various elements interact during a specifi c activity situation in collaboration with motor behavior, thoughts, and environmental assess-ment. According to the current results, accurate description of athlete ex-periences enables focus on more effi cient interactions among aspects of re-sponse to a problem encountered by athletes.

The third consequence is linked to athletes' training. Practice could comprise diffi cult or failure situations to help goalkeepers to develop re-sources or other competencies in such situations. Indeed, the constructive ergonomics approach ( Falzon, 2013 ) proposes the “enabling environment” concept, the creation of an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accordance with their needs and interests. A study on polar context showed that the operators' autonomy in seeking an acceptable solution enables them to develop new competencies ( Villemain & Lémonie, 2014 ); thus, goalkeepers' training must be taught in enabling game situations to develop players' competen-cies in the activity in potential failure situations, as well as autonomy in seeking new action strategies specifi c to the critical game situations.

The practice can be understood neither as a comfortable one nor with-in the safe zone of activity. This preparation relies not only on the coach's control, but also especially on players becoming aware of all components in-volved in the action and not only the technical aspects. The technical sphere cannot be dissociated from the players' feelings, thoughts, and intentions dur-ing the action. This analysis may also help coaches defi ne themes to develop programs of deliberate practice ( Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993 ).

REFERENCES

ADÉ , D. , POIZAT , G. , GAL-PETITFAUX , N. , TOUSSAINT , H. , & SEIFERT , L. ( 2009 ) Analysis of elite swimmers' activity during an instrumented protocol . Journal of Sports Sciences , 27 , 1043 - 1050 .

ATANCE , C. M. , & O'NEILL , D. K. ( 2005 ) The emergence of episodic future thinking in humans . Learning and Motivation , 36 , 126 - 144 .



BAKKER , F. C. , OUDEJANS , R. R. D. , BINSCH , O. , & VAN DER KAMP , J. ( 2006 ) Penalty shooting and gaze behavior: unwanted eff ects of the wish not to miss . International Journal of Sport Psychology , 37 , 265 - 280 .

BELISLE , J. L. ( 1963 ) Accuracy, reliability, and refractoriness in a coincidence-anticipation task . Research Quarterly , 34 , 271 - 281 .

BINSCH , O. , OUDEJANS , R. R. D. , BAKKER , F. C. , & SAVELSBERGH , G. J. P. ( 2010 ) Ironic eff ects and fi nal target fi xation in a penalty shooting task . Human Movement Science , 29 , 277 - 288 .

BRIKI , W. , DEN HARTIGH , J. R. , HAUW , D. , & GERNIGON , C. ( 2011 ) Psychological momentum in sport: a multidimensional and highly dynamical phenomenon . Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology , 33 , 133 .

BRIKI , W. , DEN HARTIGH , R. J. R. , HAUW , D. , & GERNIGON, C. ( 2012 ) A qualitative explora-tion of the psychological contents and dynamics of momentum in sport . Interna-tional Journal of Sport Psychology , 43 ( 5 ), 365 - 384 .

BRUNER , J. S. ( 1991 ) Car la culture donne forme à l'esprit. De la révolution cognitive à la psy-chologie culturelle [Because culture gives shape to mind: cognitive revolution in cultural psychology]. Paris, France : Eshel .

CLARK , A. ( 1997 ) Being there: putting brain, body and world together again . Cambridge , MA: MIT Press .

CORBIN , J. A. , & STRAUSS , A. ( 2008 ) Basics of qualitative research . Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage . COX , R. H. ( 2012 ) Sport psychology: concepts and applications . ( 7th ed.) New York : McGraw-

Hill . CSIKSZENTMIHALYI , M. , & LARSON , R. ( 1983 ) The experience sampling method . New Direc-

tions for Methodology of Social and Behavioral Science , 15 , 41 - 56 . DAMASIO , A. H. ( 1994 ) Descartes' error: emotion, reason, and the human brain . New York :

Avon Books . ERICSSON , K. A. , KRAMPE , R. T. , & TESCH-RÖMER , C. ( 1993 ) The role of deliberate practice in

the acquisition of expert performance . Psychological Review , 100 , 363 - 406 . FALZON , P. ( 2013 ) Ergonomie constructive . Paris, France : PUF . FLANAGAN , J. C. ( 1954 ) The Critical Incident Technique . Psychological Bulletin , 51 ( 4 ), 327 -

358 . GOUJU , J. L. , VERMERSCH , P. , & BOUTHIER , D. ( 2007 ) A psycho-phenomenological approach

to sport psychology: the presence of the opponents in hurdle races . Journal of Applied Sport Psychology , 19 ( 2 ), 173 - 186 .

GRIFFIN , M. L. ( 2003 ) Using critical incident to promote and assess refl ective thinking in preservice teachers . Refl ective Practice , 4 , 207 - 220 .

HANTON , S. , CROPLEY , B. , & LEE , S. ( 2009 ) Refl ective practice, experience, and the inter-pretation of anxiety symptoms. Journal of Sport Sciences , 27 ( 5 ), 517 - 533 .

HAUW , D. ( 2009 ) Refl ective practice in the heart of training and competition: the course of experience analysis for enhancing elite acrobatics athletes' performances . Refl ec-tive Practice, Special Issue: Refl ective Learning in Sport , 10 ( 3 ), 341 - 352 .

HAUW , D. , BERTHELOT , C. , & DURAND , M. ( 2003 ) Enhancing performance in elite athlete through situated-cognition analysis: trampolinists' course of action during com-petition . International Journal of Sport Psychology , 34 ( 4 ), 299 - 321 .

HAUW , D. , & DURAND , M. ( 2004 ) Elite athletes' diff erentiated action in trampolining: a qualitative and situated analysis of diff erent levels of performance using retro-spective interviews . Perceptual & Motor Skills , 98 , 1139 - 1152 .



HAUW , D. , & DURAND , M. ( 2007 ) Situated analysis of elite trampolinists' problems in competition using retrospective interviews . Journal of Sport Sciences , 25 ( 2 ), 173 - 183 .

HAUW , D. , & DURAND , M. ( 2008 ) Temporal dynamics of acrobatic activity: an approach of elite athletes specious present . Journal of Sports Science and Medicine , 7 , 8 - 14 .

HAUW , D. , RENAULT , G. , & DURAND , M. ( 2008 ) How do aerial freestyler skiers land on their feet? A situated analysis of athletes' activity related to new forms of acrobatic performance . Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport , 11 , 481 - 488 .

HAZLEWOOD , N. ( 1998 ) In the way!: goalkeepers - a breed apart? Milton Keynes, UK : Main-stream Publishing .

MAUREL , M. ( 2009 ) The explicitation interviews . In C. Petitmengin (Ed.), Ten years of viewing from within: the legacy of Francisco Varela . Charlottesville, VA : Imprint Aca-demic . Pp. 58 - 80 .

MCMORRIS , T. , & COLENSO , S. ( 1996 ) Anticipation and professional soccer goalkeepers when facing right- and left-footed penalty kicks . Perceptual & Motor Skills , 82 , 931 - 934 .

MILES , M. , & HUBERMAN , A. M. ( 1994 ) Qualitative data analysis: an expanded sourcebook . Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage .

MOUCHET , A. ( 2005 ) Subjectivity in the articulation between strategy and tactics in team sports: an example in rugby . Italian Journal of Sports Sciences , 12 , 24 - 33 .

PANCHUK , D. , & VICKERS , J. N. ( 2006 ) Gaze behaviors of goaltenders under spatial-tem-poral constraints . Human Movement Science , 25 , 733 - 752 .

ROBAZZA , C. , PELLIZZARI , M. , & HANIN , Y. ( 2004 ) Emotion self-regulation and athletic per-formance: an application of the IZOF model . Psychology of Sport and Exercise , 5 , 379 - 404 .

ROBBINS , P. , & AYDEDE , M. ( 2009 ) The Cambridge handbook on situated cognition . Cambridge, UK : Cambridge Univer. Press .

ROGERSON , L. J. , & HRYCAIKO , D. W. ( 2002 ) Enhancing competitive performance of ice hockey goaltenders using centering and self-talk . Journal of Applied Sport Psychol-ogy , 14 , 14 - 26 .

SÈVE , C. , NORDEZ , A. , POIZAT , G. , & SAURY , J. ( 2013 ) Performance analysis in sport: contri-butions from a joint analysis of athletes' experience and biomechanical indicators . Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports , 23 , 576 - 584 .

SÈVE , C. , RIA , L. , POIZAT , G. , SAURY , J. , & DURAND , M. ( 2006 ) Performance-induced emo-tions experienced during high-stakes table tennis matches . Psychology of Sport and Exercise , 8 ( 1 ), 25 - 46 .

SÈVE , C. , SAURY , J. , THEUREAU , J. , & DURAND , M. ( 2002 ) Activity organization and knowl-edge construction during competitive interaction in table tennis . Cognitive Systems Research , 3 , 501 - 522 .

SAVELSBERGH , G. J. , VAN DER KAMP , J. , WILLIAMS , A. M. , & WARD , P. ( 2005 ) Anticipation and visual search behaviour in expert soccer goalkeepers . Ergonomics , 48 , 1686 - 1697 .

STONE , A. A. , & SHIFFMAN , S. ( 1994 ) Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) in behav-ioral medicine . Annals of Behavioral Medicine , 3 ( 16 ), 199 - 202 .

STRAYER , J. ( 2002 ) The dynamics of emotions and life cycle identity . Identity: An Interna-tional Journal of Theory and Research , 2 , 47 - 79 .

THEUREAU , J. ( 2006 ) Le cours d'action: méthode développée [Course of action: developed method] . Toulouse , France: Octarès .



VARELA , F. J., & SHEAR , J. ( 1999 ) The view from within: fi rst-person approach in the study of consciousness . Thorveton, UK : Imprint Academic .

VERMERSCH , P. ( 1994, 2003 ) L'entretien d'explicitation [Maintaining explanation] . Paris, France : ESF .

VERMERSCH , P. ( 2000 ) Conscience directe et conscience réfl échie [Direct consciousness and refl ective consciousness] . Intellectica , 2 ( 31 ), 269 - 311 .

VERMERSCH , P. ( 2009 ) Describing the practice of introspection . In C. Petitmengin (Ed.), Ten years of viewing from within: the legacy of Francisco Varela . Charlottesville, VA : Imprint Academic . Pp. 20 - 57 .

VERMERSCH , P. , MARTINEZ , C. , MARTY , C. , MAUREL , M. , & FAINGOLD , N. ( 2003 ) Etude de l'eff et des relances en situation d'entretien [Study of the eff ect of reminders in the interview situation] . Expliciter , 49 , 1 - 30 .

VILLEMAIN , A. ( 2009 ) Mise en place de la cellule d'intervention psychologique à Claire-fontaine: développement d'un système d'aide à la performance [Implementation of the psychological intervention of Clairefontaine: development of a support sys-tem performance] . Paper presented at the 4ème Colloque International “Football & Recherches,” Clairefontaine, France, June 4-5.

VILLEMAIN , A. , & LÉMONIE , Y. ( 2014 ) Enabling environment and operators engagement: a debate from the activity of technicians of the polar station Dumont D'Urville . Activités , 11 ( 2 ), 26 - 43 .

WILLIAMS , A. M. , & DAVIDS , K. ( 1998 ) Visual search strategy, selection attention, and expertise in soccer . Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport , 69 , 111 - 128 .

YONAS , M. A. , ARONSON , R. , SCHAAL , J. , ENG , E. , HARDY , C. , & JONES , N. ( 2013 ) Critical inci-dent technique: an innovative participatory approach to examine and document racial disparities in breast cancer healthcare services . Health Education Research , 28 ( 5 ), 748 - 759 .

Accepted October 23 , 2014 .


originality | creativity | understandingergonomie.cnam.fr/equipe/villemain/14_villemain_a... · the...

Documents