Useful books & eBooks available from the VU Library
Research Proposals: a Practical Guide by
"This indispensable guide to writing research proposals takes the reader on a carefully planned journey, which is clearly sign-posted from the outset to the destination of the final proposal ... Denscombe demystifies the academic jargon inherent in proposal writing, instilling confidence in all those writing proposals, from undergraduate to doctoral level." Dr Kate Adams, Reader in Education, Bishop Grosseteste University College, Lincoln, UK "This much-needed handbook provides a guide for any researcher to turn a research idea into a successful research proposal ... Denscombe offers both a clear framework for organising the research thought process and plentiful hints for crafting a persuasive case for why a research proposal deserves financial support for getting it done." Dr Alberto Asquer, Lecturer of Business Strategy and Policy, Faculty of Economics, University of Cagliari, Italy "This is a clear and unambiguous guide covering all the essentials needed to build strong research proposals. It will prove to be invaluable not only to those new to writing research proposals but as a fast reference point for those already familiar with the requirements." Jennifer Grant, PhD researcher, University of Sunderland, UK "This how-to guide is 'a candle in the dark' for many who want to start writing research proposals. It is ... brimming with straightforward strategies which anyone can use to overcome the key fears associated with 'keeping on track' and 'selling your' research to convince funders and even your professors!" Hosea Handoyo, Boehringer - Ingelheim Fonds Research Fellow, Germany Whether you are an undergraduate student doing your final year project, a masters student writing your dissertation, or a PhD student applying for acceptance onto a doctoral programme, this practical book will help you to produce a successful and persuasive research proposal. Written by an experienced and best-selling author, this handbook uniquely draws a parallel between a research proposal and a sales pitch. The book provides guidance on what to include and what to omit from your proposal and demonstrates how to 'sell' your research idea. Denscombe ably guides you through each stage of the process: Choosing a research topic Reviewing the literature Formulating the research question Explaining the research methods Estimating the costs and planning the time involved Obtaining research ethics approval With top tips throughout, this book provides an insight to the logic behind research proposals and the way that good proposals address 7 basic questions that readers will ask when they evaluate any proposal.
The library purchases a lot of electronic books, or e-books. You can link through to these from the library website and read them online. You will also be able to download some books for a set time and read them on your own device.
These e-books are accessed through different database providers and have different restrictions on downloading and printing. When you are accessing an e-book and you want to know more information go to the information on the library website.
For further information, refer to the e-books library guide.
Biomechanical Evaluation of Movement in Sport and Exercise by
Now in a fully updated and revised new edition, this is still the only up-to-date, practical guide to the use of technology in sport and exercise biomechanics. It includes detailed explanations of the key theory underlying biomechanics testing and measurement, along with advice on choosing equipment and using it effectively. The second edition includes two completely new chapters on qualitative movement analysis and the assessment of movement coordination, and covers every key functional area in the biomechanics curriculum, including: motion analysis using video and on-line systems measurement of force and pressure measurement of torque and power using isokinetic dynamometry electromyography computational simulation and modelling of human movement research methodologies data processing. Published in association with the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES), it includes contributions from world leading researchers and pioneers in the field of sport and exercise biomechanics. Biomechanical Evaluation of Movement in Sport and Exercise is a must-have text for all biomechanics laboratories and for any student undertaking a research project or course in methods, measurement or analysis in biomechanics.
Functional Exercise and Rehabilitation by
Functional training develops the attributes and abilities required to perform tasks, skills and activities useful and relevant to daily life. Functional Exercise and Rehabilitation serves as an accessible and visual guide providing the essentials of therapeutic exercise and rehabilitation, including mobilization, stabilization and myofascial release. This book begins by explaining functional training and the foundation of the STRIVE approach. Chapter 2 introduces functional anatomy and Chapter 3 explains the fundamentals of neuroscience. The final chapters discuss the STRIVE principles and apply them to exercise, program design and injury recovery. Each chapter includes key point boxes, illustrations and photos of exercises discussed. Written by an exercise specialist and osteopath, this practical guide is presented in an easy-to-read style. Functional Exercise and Rehabilitation is essential reading for all health professionals, sports therapists and trainers involved in exercise prescription.
Monitoring Training and Performance in Athletes by
The use of athlete and team training and performance monitoring systems has grown due to technology advances. Practitioners who work with athletes from high school to elite levels in a range of sports use these systems to observe athlete data, including exercise intensity, athletic fitness, and body responses. Monitoring Training and Performance in Athletes is a compilation of evidence-based guidelines and best practices of athlete monitoring for practitioners, who are increasingly being asked to implement monitoring systems and to collect, analyze, and interpret data that ultimately result in training adjustments to optimize performance. Author Mike McGuigan, an award-winning sport scientist, blends research-based concepts with practical application strategies of monitoring training and performance in athletes. The content highlights what can be monitored, such as body stress, biochemical markers, and hormonal response; discusses reliability of modern methods, such as wearable technology and questionnaires; and helps readers understand how to interpret data to modify training programs in real time. Readers will find guidelines, approaches, and solutions for challenges in athlete monitoring for individual and team sports as well as suggestions for integrating monitoring with coaching. Numerous sidebars in the text provide real-world examples and application of the content to assist readers in understanding concepts and the cutting-edge, evidence-based research on athlete monitoring. Additionally, the full-color illustrations and photographs provide a visual interpretation of the information presented. With broad international appeal, this text outlines the most pertinent evidence-based research concepts and studies on athlete monitoring. Strength and conditioning, athletic training, and personal training professionals who work with athletes and monitor training programs will find Monitoring Training and Performance in Athletes an invaluable guide in managing monitoring systems and making adjustments in training programs based on the data to help athletes and teams achieve peak performance.
Applied Sport Mechanics by
Applied Sport Mechanics, Fourth Edition With Web Study Guide, helps undergraduate students understand how the fundamental laws of human movement affect athletes' performances. Foundational principles of kinetics, kinematics, and sports technique are clearly presented and then explored through a variety of applied scenarios. What's New This latest edition builds on the success of the previous editions (formerly titled Sport Mechanics for Coaches), and offers much new material: * A web study guide with new chapter review questions and practical activities that help students learn and apply complex theories to real-life situations * An array of updated pedagogical aids, including a glossary and chapter objectives to reinforce learning * A full-color design for more engaging visual aids * Reorganized content into two parts and 13 chapters to more readily fit the topics into a typical semester course structure * Expanded sidebars that apply concepts directly to sport To make the text applicable for teaching, it also includes a full ancillary package including an instructor guide with a sample syllabus, suggested learning activities, and lecture aids; a test package approximately 20 questions per chapter; and a presentation package plus image bank with ready-made presentations that instructors can use as is or modify to suit their needs. Content Organization Part I, which houses the first 10 chapters or 10 weeks, focuses on the fundamentals of sport mechanics. Major topics covered include the anatomy and fundamentals of sport mechanics, linear motion and linear kinetics in sport, angular motion and angular kinetics in sport, stability and instability, sport kinetics, and moving through fluids. Part II, which contains the final three chapters, helps students apply the information they learned in part I. Chapters 11 and 12 explain how to observe and analyze an athlete's technique and how to correct errors. Students learn how to break a skill into phases and what to look for in each phase. They also learn the mechanical principles that will help them correct the errors. Chapter 13 explores mechanics in a range of sport skills and techniques, including sprinting, jumping, swimming, lifting, throwing, and kicking. Students learn that technique and mechanics are inseparable. The chapters also contain two helpful types of sidebars: At a Glance sidebars summarize difficult content with bulleted lists, and Application to Sport sidebars bring concepts to life, showing how they work in sport. Go-To Resource This fourth edition of Applied Sport Mechanics is a highly practical text, destined to be the go-to biomechanics and sport mechanics resource for instructors and professionals alike in kinesiology and sport related fields.
Complex Sport Analytics by
This book is the first to combine principles from analytics, complex systems theory, multi-disciplinary diagnostics and sport performance analysis. It considers athletes, teams, and sport organizations in individual and team games as complex systems, and demonstrates how complexity studies can enrich analytics and give us a more sophisticated understanding of the causalities of winning and losing in sports. Part I introduces the basic categories of analytics and their uses in elite sport. Part II presents an original conception of sport analytics both as a complex of different kinds of processes and as a complexity-adapted view of human systems acting in sport performance and management. Part III considers the main principles of complex sport analytics, expanding the prism of complexity to include all levels of a sport organization from athletes, coaches and trainers to top decision makers, and suggests practical applications and simulations for cases of both individual and team sports. This is illuminating reading for any advanced student, researcher or practitioner working in sport analytics, performance analysis, coaching science or sport management.
Research Methods for Sports Performance Analysis by
Modern techniques of sports performance analysis enable the sport scientist, coach and athlete to objectively assess, and therefore improve upon, sporting performance. They are an important tool for any serious practitioner in sport and, as a result, performance analysis has become a key component of degree programmes in sport science and sports coaching. Research Methods for Sports Performance Analysis explains how to undertake a research project in performance analysis including: selection and specification of a research topic the research proposal gaining ethical approval for a study developing a performance analysis system testing a system for reliability analysing and discussing data writing up results. Covering the full research cycle and clearly introducing the key themes and issues in contemporary performance analysis, this is the only book that sports students will need to support a research project in performance analysis, from undergraduate dissertation to doctoral thesis. Including case studies, examples and data throughout, this book is essential reading for any student or practitioner with an interest in performance analysis, sports coaching or applied sport science.
Fundamentals of Qualitative Research by
Fundamentals of Qualitative Research approaches qualitative inquiry as a strategically selected composite of genres, elements, and styles. Saldana, author of the bestselling book, The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers, brings clear writing and explanatory prowess to this new textbookfor learning the fundamentals of qualitative research methods.This book presents a concise yet rigorous description of how to design and conduct fieldwork projects and how to examine data in multiple ways for interpretive insight. Saldana, a master teacher and qualitative data analyst, acquaints readers with the major genres of qualitative research availableand the elements of interviewing, participant observation, and other data collection methods to inform emergent research design decisions. An extended chapter on qualitative data analysis is one of the book's unique features. Saldana devotes necessary coverage to conceptual foundations, coding,analytic memo writing, thematic analysis, assertion development, grounded theory, narrative and poetic inquiry, and ethnodramatic approaches to the data. Eight distinctive styles of qualitative writing are presented. The book concludes with a list of recommended readings in the field, as well asadditional resources on organizations and associations dedicated to qualitative research.Fundamentals of Qualitative Research is an ideal introduction for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in education, sociology, psychology, anthropology, human communication, and health care.
Sports Analytics by
As the analysis of big datasets in sports performance becomes a more entrenched part of the sporting landscape, so the value of sport scientists and analysts with formal training in data analytics grows. Sports Analytics: Analysis, Visualisation and Decision Making in Sports Performance provides the most authoritative and comprehensive guide to the use of analytics in sport and its application in sports performance, coaching, talent identification and sports medicine available. Employing an approach-based structure and integrating problem-based learning throughout the text, the book clearly defines the difference between analytics and analysis and goes on to explain and illustrate methods including: Interactive visualisation Simulation and modelling Geospatial data analysis Spatiotemporal analysis Machine learning Genomic data analysis Social network analysis Offering a mixed-methods case study chapter, no other book offers the same level of scientific grounding or practical application in sports data analytics. Sports Analytics is essential reading for all students of sports analytics, and useful supplementary reading for students and professionals in talent identification and development, sports performance analysis, sports medicine and applied computer science.
Sport and Exercise Physiology Testing Guidelines: Volume II - Exercise and Clinical Testing by
Since its first published edition more than 30 years ago, the BASES (British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences) Physiological Testing Guidelines have represented the leading knowledge base of current testing methodology for sport and exercise scientists. Sport and exercise physiologists conduct physiological assessments that have proven validity and reliability, both in laboratory and sport-specific contexts. A wide variety of test protocols have been developed, adapted and refined to support athletes of all abilities reach their full potential. This book is a comprehensive guide to these protocols and to the key issues relating to physiological testing. With contributions from leading specialist sport physiologists and covering a wide range of mainstream sports in terms of ethical, practical and methodological issues, this volume represents an essential resource for sport-specific exercise testing in both research and applied settings. This new edition draws on the authors' experience of supporting athletes from many sports through several Olympic cycles to achieve world leading performances. While drawing on previous editions, it is presented in a revised format matching the sport groupings used in elite sport support within the UK sport institutes. Building on the underpinning general procedures, these specific chapters are supported by appropriate up-to-date case studies in the supporting web resources.
Sport and Exercise Physiology Testing Guidelines: Volume I - Sport Testing by
Since its first published edition more than 30 years ago, the BASES (British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences) Physiological Testing Guidelines have represented the leading knowledge base of current testing methodology for sport and exercise scientists. Sport and exercise physiologists conduct physiological assessments that have proven validity and reliability, both in laboratory and sport-specific contexts. A wide variety of test protocols have been developed, adapted and refined to support athletes of all abilities reach their full potential. This book is a comprehensive guide to these protocols and to the key issues relating to physiological testing. With contributions from leading specialist sport physiologists and covering a wide range of mainstream sports in terms of ethical, practical and methodological issues, this volume represents an essential resource for sport-specific exercise testing in both research and applied settings. This new edition draws on the authors' experience of supporting athletes from many sports through several Olympic cycles to achieve world leading performances. While drawing on previous editions, it is presented in a revised format matching the sport groupings used in elite sport support within the UK sport institutes. Building on the underpinning general procedures, these specific chapters are supported by appropriate up-to-date case studies in the supporting web resources.
