#320 Dave Bright & Dr Oliver Runswick - Examining and Comparing Learning Conditions for Skill Development
Release Date: 05/19/2025
#336 Dr Simon Quick - Balancing Athlete Welfare with the Pressure to Perform
The Sport Psych Show
I speak with Dr Simon Quick in this week’s episode. Simon is a lecturer in Sport Coaching at the University of Essex, specialising in sport pedagogy, coaching ethics, and holistic athlete development. Simon previously taught Physical Education in high schools holding leadership roles including Head of Physical Education, Athletic Director, and Deputy Headteacher. Simon is an active researcher and collaborator, with recent publications in leading journals such as the International Sport Coaching Journal, Quest, International Journal of Sport Science and Coaching, and Journal of Teaching in...
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#335 Dave Webb - Preparing for the Pressure of Tournament Play
The Sport Psych Show
I’m delighted to speak with Dave Webb in this week’s episode. Dave is a leading manager and coach who has been at the forefront of elite international and club football for more than two decades. Dave has held various sporting director, coaching, and recruitment roles at the highest levels of the game both in the UK and abroad. He is currently the Georgia National Team Assistant Manager where he helped Georgia make history with qualification to a first-ever tournament as well as reaching the knock-out stages at the European Championships in 2024. Dave holds a master's degree in sport...
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#334 Simon Gelsthorpe - Emotionally Informed Coaching
The Sport Psych Show
I speak with Simon Gelsthorpe in this week’s episode. Simon is a clinical psychologist who specialises in emotions. He works with sports coaches and sports organisations to help them be more psychological in their coaching, thereby improving athlete emotional well-being and performance. Simon is a visiting fellow at the University of Bradford with the Psychology Centre. He is also the developer of Emotionally Informed Coaching.
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#333 Dr Robin Owen and Prof Shuge Zhang - The Impact of Anxiety on Performance
The Sport Psych Show
I’m delighted to speak with Dr Robin Owen and Prof Shuge Zhang in this week’s episode. Robin is a Senior Lecturer in Sport Psychology at Liverpool Hope University. His research aims to advance our understanding of anxiety, attentional focus, motor control, skill acquisition, statistical prediction, cognitive functioning, and talent identification/development. Shuge is currently a research Professor in Sport & Exercise Psychology at Hunan University of Technology in China. He previously lectured at the University of Derby. Shuge is a chartered psychologist of...
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#332 Dr Alan McKay - Supporting Players to Develop Mental Toughness
The Sport Psych Show
I’m delighted to speak with Dr Alan McKay in this week’s episode. Alan is an HCPC sport psychologist, researcher, and practitioner. He completed his PhD in sport psychology with the Football Association of Wales (FAW) and is currently working as a senior research assistant at the FAW Centre for Football Research, housed at the University of South Wales. In this role he helps to produce multidisciplinary, world-leading, applied performance science research to enhance the performance of Welsh athletes and organisations. Alan also works within elite level sport at both Welsh...
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#331 Dr Erin Prior - Navigating Athlete Mental Health
The Sport Psych Show
I am delighted to speak with Dr Erin Prior in this episode. Erin is a Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologist working across a range of sports. Erin has her own sport psychology consultancy practice working with a wide range of athletes, coaches, and parents to enhance their psychological approach to their sport. She has worked with a variety of sporting organisations including the FA, The Wheelchair Football Association, Swim England, West Bromwich Albion, Aston Villa FC, and Leicestershire and Rutland Sport. Erin has also worked as a consultant for various universities including Warwick...
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#330 Johan Forsberg - Examining the Relationship Between Psychological States and Performance
The Sport Psych Show
I’m delighted to speak with Johan Forsberg in this week’s episode. Johan is a mental performance coach and Swedish former professional ice hockey player. Johan helps individuals, groups and organisations to develop, feel and perform better. He is primarily interested in leadership, motivation and group dynamics. Johan has provided support and training for coaches, managers, and elite athletes. Prior to his work as a mental performance coach, Johan played professional ice hockey for 15 years including playing for , the highest level in the .
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#329 Dr Phil Kearney - Skill Acquisition: Defining and Developing Skill
The Sport Psych Show
I’m delighted to speak with Dr Phil Kearney in this week’s episode. Phil is one of the world's leading skill acquisition specialists. He is Interim Course Director of the Masters and Applied Sports Coaching course at the University of Limerick. Phil completed his PhD at the University of Limerick, exploring the application of skill acquisition principles to children’s learning of fundamental movement skills. He subsequently taught at the University of Chichester, England, where he was programme coordinator for the BSc Sport Science and Coaching, before returning to Ireland. A Fellow of...
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#328 Dr Ellie Gennings - Well-Being and Well-Becoming in Children’s Sport
The Sport Psych Show
I am delighted to speak with Dr Ellie Gennings in this episode. Ellie is a Senior Lecturer in Sports Coaching based in the Department of Sport and Event Management at Bournemouth University. Ellie is interested in children's wellbeing, children’s rights and safe sport. Ellie completed her PhD in 2022 in which she measured children’s wellbeing developing a wellbeing scale. In this episode we discuss a fantastic paper Ellie led on entitled “A critical examination of children’s well-being and well-becoming in a professional youth football academy”.
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#327 Dr Peter Schneider - Sport Psychology for Elite-Level Environments
The Sport Psych Show
I’m delighted to speak with Dr Peter Schneider in this week’s episode. Peter is an expert in high performance environments and transitions. He was most recently the mental performance coach at RB Leipzig helping them to win 2 DFB Cups and 1 Supercup. Peter’s focus is to help create talent development environments in which athletes, coaches, and parents are provided with the necessary information that leads to success at the professional level. Peter’s area of expertise includes talent-development environments, transition into professional sport, group processes, coach-athlete...
info_outlineI’m delighted to speak with Dave Bright and Dr Oliver Runswick in this episode.
Dave is a coach and Senior Lecturer in Sport Coaching at Chichester University. His main research interests are in motor learning and its application to practical sport coaching.
Dave has coached martial arts for 25+ years. And it was from his experiences in coaching that led him to do a Sport Science Coaching degree, then a Sport & Exercise Psychology Masters degree.
Dave’s current role requires him to develop undergraduate students as sport coaches, providing them with an awareness and understanding of the underpinning motor learning and coaching research.
Dave is undertaking a PhD investigating the effects of cognitive load and autonomous task selection in motor learning.
Ollie is a Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London. His research focuses on understanding and enhancing learning and performance in domains including sport, dance, education, and the military.
Ollie is the Editor in Chief of Perceptual and Motor Learning Skills at Sage Publishing and a Human Performance Technology Consultant providing consultancy in virtual reality applications, skill acquisition and motor learning, perceptual-cognitive skill, training/practice design, talent ID and development, vision in performance and performance systems.
Ollie received a first-class BSc in Sport and Exercise Science from Swansea University, MSc in Human Movement Science from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, PGCHE from St Mary’s University, and PhD from Liverpool Hope University where he studied perceptual-motor skills based with St Mary’s University’s Expertise and Skill Acquisition Research Group.
Dave, Ollie and I discuss a paper they co-wrote along with Dr Jenny Smith, Dr Philip Kearney which compares two learning conditions - task-related autonomy and cognitive effort. Research has shown that both feelings of autonomy (as supported by OPTIMAL theory) and cognitive effort (as supported by Challenge Point) can positively impact skill development. This research paper aimed to compare these two approaches to learning. Results showed no differences between the effects of autonomy and cognitive effort, but uncovered participants use of tactical learning to improve. We unpack the paper and discuss its real-world application for coaching settings.