Staff Profiles

Danny teachers across a wide range of modules but is primarily focussed on the practical and theortical elements of coaching and teaching.

Modules taught

Danny leads the following modules:

u76140 - Coaching Practice to Theory 2

u76173 - Advanced Coaching Practice

u76112 - Human Movement and Skill in Sport

Danny is currently enrolled on a PhD. The study aims to bridge the gap between the theory and practical application of a Constraints-Led Approach. By operationalising the underpinning theopries of ecological dynmaics through the production of frameworks, Danny aims to optimise the environment design of practitioners and researches.

Research projects

Danny is involved in an exciting primary school PE project. Analysing the impact of a play-based curriculum on the development of childresn physical literacy.

www.boingkids.co.uk

Further information

https://www.routledge.com/sport/series/RSCBMS

Books

• , Ed., Nonlinear Pedagogy and the Athletic Skills Model: The Importance of Play in Supporting Physical Literacy, Routledge (2021)
  ISBN: 9780367457945 eISBN: 9781003025375
  Abstract

  This book offers an ecological conceptualisation of physical literacy. Re-embracing our ancestry as hunter gatherers we gain a new appreciation and understanding of the importance of play, not only in terms of how children learn, but also in showing us as educators how we can lay the foundations for lifelong physical activity. The concept of physical literacy has been recognised and understood throughout history by different communities across the globe. Today, as governments grapple with the multiple challenges of urban life in the 21st century, we can learn from our forebears how to put play at the centre of children’s learning in order to build a more enduring physically active society.

  This book examines contemporary pedagogical approaches, such as constraints-led teaching, nonlinear pedagogy and the athletic skills model, which are underpinned by the theoretical framework of Ecological Dynamics. It is suggested that through careful design, these models, aimed at children, as well as young athletes, can (i) encourage play and facilitate physical activity and motor learning in children of different ages, providing them with the foundational skills needed for leading active lives; and (ii), develop young athletes in elite sports programmes in an ethical, enriching and supportive manner.

  Through this text, scientists, academics and practitioners in the sub-disciplines of motor learning and motor development, physical education, sports pedagogy and physical activity and exercise domains will better understand how to design programmes that encourage play and thereby develop the movement skills, self-regulating capacities, motivation and proficiency of people, so that they can move skilfully, effectively and efficiently while negotiating changes throughout the human lifespan. -- Provided by publisher.

  Website 

Journal articles

• Renshaw I, Davids, K, Araujo D, Lucas A, Roberts W, Newcombe D, Franks B, 'Evaluating Weaknesses of Cognitive Perceptual Training and Brain Training Methods in Sport: An Ecological Dynamics Critique '
  Frontiers in Psychology 9 (2019)
  ISSN: 1664-1078
  Abstract

  The recent upsurge in “brain training and perceptual-cognitive training,” proposing to improve isolated processes, such as brain function, visual perception, and decision-making, has created significant interest in elite sports practitioners, seeking to create an “edge” for athletes. The claims of these related “performance-enhancing industries” can be considered together as part of a process training approach proposing enhanced cognitive and perceptual skills and brain capacity to support performance in everyday life activities, including sport. For example, the “process training industry” promotes the idea that playing games not only makes you a better player but also makes you smarter, more alert, and a faster learner. In this position paper, we critically evaluate the effectiveness of both types of process training programmes in generalizing transfer to sport performance. These issues are addressed in three stages. First, we evaluate empirical evidence in support of perceptual-cognitive process training and its application to enhancing sport performance. Second, we critically review putative modularized mechanisms underpinning this kind of training, addressing limitations and subsequent problems. Specifically, we consider merits of this highly specific form of training, which focuses on training of isolated processes such as cognitive processes (attention, memory, thinking) and visual perception processes, separately from performance behaviors and actions. We conclude that these approaches may, at best, provide some “general transfer” of underlying processes to specific sport environments, but lack “specificity of transfer” to contextualize actual performance behaviors. A major weakness of process training methods is their focus on enhancing the performance in body “modules” (e.g., eye, brain, memory, anticipatory sub-systems). What is lacking is evidence on how these isolated components are modified and subsequently interact with other process “modules,” which are considered to underlie sport performance. Finally, we propose how an ecological dynamics approach, aligned with an embodied framework of cognition undermines the rationale that modularized processes can enhance performance in competitive sport. An ecological dynamics perspective proposes that the body is a complex adaptive system, interacting with performance environments in a functionally integrated manner, emphasizing that the inter-relation between motor processes, cognitive and perceptual functions, and the constraints of a sport task is best understood at the performer-environment scale of analysis.
  

  Website 

Other publications

• Franks B, Newcombe D, Roberts WM, Jakeman J, 'Shhh… We're talking about the Quiet Eye! A Perceptual Approach to the Transfer of Skill: Quiet Eye as an Insight into Perception-Action Coupling in Elite Football'
  (2017) Abstract Amidst the continued theorising and objective epistemological approach to perceptual research
  (Michaels and Beek, 1995), there remains little clarity regarding what information athletes use to
  direct decision making in performance settings and how skill is transferred from training to performance. The role of perception-action coupling within decision-making in team sports has been discussed at great length (Vaeyens et al, 2007; Pinder et al, 2011). With scholars reaching some consensus that skilled performers are not blessed with superior visual ability, rather, their ability to locate and interpret key specifying information is what determines expertise in a particular skill (Vickers, 2006). The methodological accord has often been to recreate core, single action motor-control tasks in the hope of elucidating data to suggest a change in behaviour in any given number of constraint manipulations (Vickers, 1996; Williams, Singer and Frehlich, 2002; Vine and Wilson, 2011). However, research remains in isolation of the complexities of the real world (Vaeyens, 2007; Williams and Grant, 1999). The Quiet Eye (QE) has become increasingly popular (Vickers, 2016), it details the final fixation towards a specific location or object within 3* of visual angle or less for a minimum of 100m/s (Vickers, 2016). It is reasonable to suggest that QE describes the variable in which to examine the relationship between perception and action (Vickers, 1996; Panchuk and Vickers, 2006). A SensoMotoric Instrument – Eye Tracking Glasses (SMI-ETG) binocular system will be employed within an elite level goalkeeping context. QE data will be collected in three different practice environments and compared to QE measures taken in a representative performance simulation. The practice environment design will be informed by principles of ecological dynamics as presented in the Environment Design Framework (Newcombe et al, in press). The data will be coded to establish the relationship between increased variability and the location, onset and off set of the Quiet Eye. Effect size measures will be conducted to see the variance between the 3 training trials and the representative simulation to determine the level of fidelity, between training and performance. This key data set will allow coaches to design practices and training environments in accordance with key perceptual cues used by Goalkeepers to inform their decisions and actions. Website 

Areas of expertise

Non-linear pedagogy

Constraints-Led Approach

Application of coaching theory to practice

Human Movement and Skill Development

Consultancy

Danny is involved in a wide range of consultany with various sporting national governing bodies. The development of coaches practice, in particular their environment design and application of a constraints-led approach.

Danny is the director of teaching and learning for Boing Kids - www.boingkids.co.uk

Danny is the assistand coach for the Welsh National Hockey team. In addition he is the head coach of the Southgate mens national hockey league team.

Danny is park of the GB Hockey performance coaching group and contributes heavily to the coach development elements of GB hockey.

Press, publicity and reviews

Recent Constraints-Led Approach Podcast - http://perceptionaction.com/49/