Assignments

1. Read/Understand/Organize/Present
  • This assignment is intended to acquaint you with research and how to present research data. You will work in groups of four people.

  • Beginning February 2 and continuing every Monday (hour #2 of class) thereafter (and including Wednesday, April 21 - last day of class) two of you will present a 30 min discussion/directed presentation in one of 3 areas (Biomechanics; Motor Control; Exercise Physiology) to your other team members. Your presentation can take any form you wish (but probably a PowerPoint presentation would be most efficient).

  • You are to assume the position as the originator of the research you are presenting. Your job is to inform/teach/enlighten to what you have done and what you found.

  • You will be required to make 6 presentations during the semester, two in each of the three areas of interest. You are to turn in to your materials (including a copy of the research article) on the day of your presentation.

  • You are to find an appropriate research article in one of the three areas, read it carefully and prepare a presentation of your choice with whatever support material you think necessary. The presentation must include the following:

    1. Title

    2. Statement of the problem (what is the research about?)

    3. Background (what does your audience need to know to become familiar with this topic, i.e. previous research, problem to be solved, area of interest; hypotheses; ideas, etc.)

    4. Methods/Procedures (what was done and how was it done)

    5. Statistics used

    6. Findings (results of study: what was found and what bearing does it have to hypotheses, problem studied) � Major finding (major finding of study; most important aspect of study)

    7. Summary

    8. Conclusion

Each presentation will be graded on a five-point scale. Four points will be based on the material you turn in and 1 point based on your presentation.

 

2. Research Study (This project is due no later than Fri April 16)
  • You are to work with 1 or 2 other peers on this project (they cannot be members of your team from assignment #1).

  • You must sign-up for a topic no latter than 1 week prior to the first exam. Number of people working on any one project is limited; the earlier you sign-up the.

Topics

    1. Balance
    2. Flexibility
    3. Endurance
    4. Strength
    5. Fatigue
    6. Speed
    7. Agility
    8. Jumping ability
    9. Posture
    10. Reaction/movement time
    11. Coordination
    12. Power
    13. Percent body fat
    14. Timing
    15. Kinesthesis
    16. Muscle pain/soreness
    17. Warm-up
  • You are to present a report that includes the topics listed below. This must be a research driven project and highly referenced. You will work together with your partner and present 1 document.

    1. Definition/discussion
    2. History of use (first documented research in the area); other pertinent research
    3. Operational definitions (give different options from the literature; examples of testing and how-to measure)
    4. Reliability review
    5. Validity review
    6. Use and applications in different areas
    7. Norms
    8. Mini-research study
  • You are to test at least 10 subjects with respect to reliability. You will need to plan carefully and provide a detailed proposal of what you plan to do (due no latter than March19, 2004), how you will do it, your hypotheses, data collection procedures, planned statistics, data analyses, data results, general discussion.

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