EXSC652 - Contemporary Issues in Sports Science

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

Unit rationale, description and aim

High performance sport systems and practices vary greatly between specific sports, organisations and cultures. To optimise athlete and/or team performance, practitioners require evidence-based knowledge, practical skills to apply this knowledge, and an understanding of the roles of other support staff to effectively integrate these knowledge and skills. This unit aims to introduce students to the multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary environment of high performance sport and have them to reflect on their own practice. A seminar series of experts from sports science and related allied health professions (e.g., sports psychology; skill acquisition; nutrition/dietetics; physiotherapy; sports medicine) will introduce the contemporary knowledge and practices from their field of expertise relevant to athlete and team preparation and performance. Students will gain an understanding of how these specialist professions that operate in sporting organisations integrate and communicate with respect to athlete management.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO1 - Citique contemporary practices in sports science, strength & conditioning and allied professions (GA4, GA5, GA6)

LO2 - Compare and contrast the benefits of an integrated, cross-disciplinary approach to athlete preparation in the high performance environment (GA1, GA2, GA5)

LO3 - Deliver evidence-based contemporary practice in areas including athlete testing, strength and power profiling, activity profiling, and fatigue and recovery monitoring (GA3, GA4, GA5, GA6)

LO4 - Apply ethical and social responsibility to professional sports science practice in high performance sport organisations (GA1, GA2, GA3)

Graduate attributes

GA1 - demonstrate respect for the dignity of each individual and for human diversity 

GA2 - recognise their responsibility to the common good, the environment and society 

GA3 - apply ethical perspectives in informed decision making

GA4 - think critically and reflectively 

GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession 

GA6 - solve problems in a variety of settings taking local and international perspectives into account

Content

Topics of the unit address contemporary issues and practices faced by a range of professions that operate in high performance sport. These roles will be presented in the context of operating within a multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary setting, with particular relevance to athlete preparation, performance and monitoring. Areas of expertise may include: 

• Contemporary sports science theory and application 
• Contemporary field testing and conditioning prescription 
• Assessing strength & power performance 
• Activity profiling and the use of microtechnology (e.g. GPS) 
• Monitoring athlete fatigue status and wellbeing 
• Multi- and/or Inter-disciplinary approaches in high performance sport 

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

ACU Online

This unit uses an active learning approach to support students in the exploration of knowledge essential to the discipline. Students are provided with choice and variety in how they learn. Students are encouraged to contribute to discussion activities. Active learning provides students with opportunities to apply their learning to industry-relevant contexts. Activities encourage students to bring their own examples to demonstrate understanding, application and engage constructively with their peers. Students receive regular and timely feedback on their learning, which includes information on their progress.

Assessment strategy and rationale

In order to best enable students to achieve unit learning outcomes and develop graduate attributes, standards-based assessment is utilised, consistent with University assessment requirements. A range of assessment strategies have been purposefully designed for the assessment of learning outcomes reflecting the principles of authentic assessment design and include:

• Assessment Task 1: a written task to assess skills of critical appraisal, commuication and application of literature; and
• Assessment Task 2: a reflective report to consolidate learning, communicate understanding, and application to professional practice. 

Students must achieve a cumulative grade of at least 50% across all assessments.

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

Bompa, Tudor O., and Carlo Buzzichelli. Periodization-: theory and methodology of training. Human kinetics, 2019.

Joyce, David, and Dan Lewindon, eds. High-performance training for sports. Human Kinetics, 2014.

Tanner, Rebecca, and Christopher Gore. Physiological tests for elite athletes. Human kinetics, 2012.