I HATE RAIN.

RAIN IS BAD.
I have some results but I need to do repeats. And the rain isn't letting me. 41 degrees for Duke of Ed Practise, then rain on our test camp. No swimming or athletics carnival in year 7 and first swimming carnival in YEAR 10. Haven't had a year where we've had both carnivals. Everytime I bring an umbrella to school it doens't rain. When I don't it pours. And now with my SRP, it chooses to open the heavens like the rains that purged the world of evil, in "Noah's Ark". My conclusion: the weather hates me.
I DON'T LIKE YOU EITHER!

So, I have some results but I want to put all my results up in one go. So here's a bit more research. And I have decided that I'm just gonna write my permission notes for people doing my experiment.
And thanks to everyone who have consented to help me with my SRP and those who have already come to throw a couple of hoops.

Now...
I went on Google Books, like Ms Zhang suggested. I haven't been able to go to the library as much as I'd like so I'm taking this shortcut.
From Sport Psychology, by Matt Jarvis, there is a lot of information. The history of sport psychology has dated back to almost as early as the first investigations into human psychology. It stated that the first recorded study of sport psycholgy dated back to the end of the ninteenth century. Norman Triplett (1898) is often said to be the person who conducted the very first experiment in sport psychology. He was also cited to have conducted the first experiment in social psychology, which affects sport psychology. Triplett showed that a cyclist would cycle faster when racing against another cyclist, than when riding alone. In the 1920s the discipline of sport psychology was formally established.
Personality plays a very big part in sport psychology. It is possible that certain "personality traits" affect sports performance. There is a theory called "Eysenk Theory" which proposes that personality can be classed by two traits: extroversion and neuroticism. The extroversion trait shows how lively and sociable a person is, while the neuroticism shows the person's emotional stability.
There have been many attempts on trying to use personality traits to identify successful athletes. One of the earliest attempts at doing this was by Ogilvie and Tutko (1966). They proposed eleven traits which successful sportsmen would score highly in. These were: aggression, coachability, conscientiousness, self-confidence, determination, guilt-proneness, emotional control, drive, leadership, trust and mental toughness. This was found to be untrue, but sparked further investigation.
Some studies, with superior personality tests, have found that there are some links between personality and sports ability. Garland and Barry (1990) ran some tests on American college students and found that tough-mindedness, extroversion, group dependence and emotional stability accounted for 29% of the variance in sporting ability. This shows that though personality is one important trait affecting sports performance and psychology, many other factors also contribute to success.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=8Xy629OzAQsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=sport+psychology&ei=rff8S5CAOIeSkATB9JiQBQ&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

JARVIS, MATT; Sport Psychology p. 2, p.9, p.15

In the book Psychology in Sport by John M. D. Kremer and Deidre M. Scully, again perosnality and sport psychology have connections drawn between them. But there is also information on development and various other aspects contributing to success in sport. One is team cohesion and team spirit. People seem more respectable to group decisions, have a common belief that "Two heads are better than one" and that the team which has the strongest friendships has the best chance of winning. "Team building" is an important part of any team sport, and many sport psychologists stress that it is important for coaches to emphasise team aspirations, rather than individual ones for people to work towards.
As well as that, there is devlopmental psychology, which refers mostly to a child's development in younger ages with sport. All children do not grow and mature at the same rate, and they develop skills at different rates as well. This can lead to difficulty in finding which chiild is ready fpr a formal sprt programme, and which are not. But with early devlopment of sporting skills, and experiencing in playing a certain sport, this can affect a child's thinking in future, when he or she engages in a sport of some sort.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=_b2nlDMAtfQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=sport+psychology&ei=rff8S5CAOIeSkATB9JiQBQ&cd=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

KREMER, JOHN M. D. and SCULLY, DEIDRE M.; Psychology in Sport p. 114-116, p. 160

There's some information. There are actually a lot of things contributing to succes in sport and sport psychology... so complicated...

Well hopefully I can look more into the exact things that might affect a person on the spot, when they are about to do some sport. Perhaps in relation to basketball. Yes. OK, I'll be back.

THE EXPERIMENT (REVISED)

I haven't actually made much of a change but I've been thinking that it'd be hard to find a lot of people who play basketball with a lot of experience. So I'll have two groups, one who are full of people who have REALLY no experience whatsoever in basketball, and one who is for those who have played basketball a little more. The rest is pretty much the same.
And I REALLY REALLY those permission note thingys, Ms Zhang. Please.

AIM: To find whether the absence or presence of a net affects free throw accuracy in basketball.

HYPOTHESIS: The absence of a net decrease free throw accuracy in basketball.

EQUIPMENT: official NBA sized basketball, basketball court, basketball net, 30 people (15 reasonably experienced players, 15 non-experienced players), recording apparatus

METHOD:
1. Set up basketball court on a clear day, with net attached to hoop on the side facing away from the sun.
2. Have each person shoot at the hoop 10 times from the penalty line.
3. Take the net off the hoop.
4. Have each person shoot at the hoop ten times from the penalty line.
5. Record results, with a separate record for each person, with experience level noted.
6. Repeat the steps 1-5 two more times on different days but under the same conditions.
7. Compare and analyse all the results.

This was based on another experiment I found:

http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2006/Projects/JO334.pdf

And as a spot of extra revision, I found this site:

http://www.ultimate-youth-basketball-guide.com/basketball-question-on-shooting1.html

It stated that "not having a net shouldn't effect the basketball shooting percentage. It changes the way you see the hoop and may make your shoot feel different. You just have to focus on the rim when your shooting and forget that there is not a net on the hoop."

Hopefully next time I come on I can get some results down.

HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY IN SPORTS

Sorry this isn't related but it's just that I need to get it out of my system. I HATE BIEBER!! HE IS A SAD BOY WHO SINGS LIKE A GIRL AND BECAUSE OF SOMEONE I HEARD SOME OF HIS SAD SONGS JUST NOW. AND SHE WILL PAY.

Much better.

Well I've decided to look into human psychology in sports, because when playing sport I believe the mind works differently and becomes more competitive. And maybe if there are cheer squads or people encouraging a player, he or she may perform better. If this is the case I'll have to control this in someway.

Wikipedia defines sport pschology as "the study of a person's behavior in sport." It also states that "It is also a specialisation within the brain psychology that seeks to understand psychological/mental factors that affect performance in sports, physical activity, and exercise and apply these to enhance individual and team performance."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_psychology

The above definition tallies with the definition I found on the site of the Australian Psychological Society: Sport psychology - "Sport psychology is the study of psychological and mental factors that influence, and are influenced by, participation in sport, exercise and physical activity, and the application of this knowledge to everyday settings."

"What is sport psychology?" http://www.psychology.org.au/community/specialist/sport/

There is one last site, and this one goes into a fair bit more detail.

There is a thing known to sport psychologists called the 4C's. These are known as concentration, confidence, control and commitment. These are the four points that are considered by sport psychologists as the main mental qualities that are important for successful performance in sports.

Concentration is the mental quality to focus on the task currently being completed. If an athlete lacks concentration then their athletic skils will not be effectively or efficiently applied to the sport. There are two different types of attention focus. Research has identified these as:

•Broad Narrow continuum - the athlete focuses on a large or small number of stimuli
•Internal External continuum - the athlete focuses on internal stimuli (feelings) or external stimuli (ball)

The demand for concentration varies with the sport:

•Sustained concentration - distance running, cycling, tennis, squash
•Short bursts of concentration - cricket, golf, shooting, athletic field events
•Intense concentration - sprinting events, bobsleigh, skiing

Common distractions are: anxiety, mistakes, fatigue, weather, public announcements, coach, manager, opponent, negative thoughts etc.

I think, for my experiment, the people will need short bursts of attention for trying to shoot a basket.

Confidence results from the comparison an athlete makes between the goal they are trying to achieve and their ability (in this case trying to get the ball into the basket). The athlete will have self-confidence if they believe they can achieve their goal.

When an athlete has self confidence they will tend to persevere even when things are not going very well, show enthusiasm, be positive in their approach and take their share of the responsibility in success and fail.

To improve their self confidence, an athlete can use mental imagery to:

•visualise previous good performance to remind them of the look and feel
•imagine various scenarios and how they will cope with them

I'll have to consider the confidence level of the people participating in the experiment, because those who are likely to feel less confident, especially performing in front of players who may appear better, might not perform as well as they could. Repeats of the experiment can help with keeping results accurate, as well as elminating possible factors that induce lower confidence levels.

Control here means emotional control. Identifying when an athlete feels a particular emotion and understanding the reason for the feelings is an important stage of helping an athlete gain control. An athlete's ability to maintain control of their emotions in the face of the opposition and remain positive is essential to successful performance. Two emotions that are often associated with poor performance are anxiety and anger.

• Anxiety comes in two forms - Physical (butterflies, sweating, nausea, needing the toilet)
• Mental (worry, negative thoughts, confusion, lack of concentration)

When an athlete becomes angry, the cause of the anger often becomes the focus of attention. This then leads to a lack of concentration on the task, performance deteriorates and confidence in ability is lost which fuels the anger.

I don't think the control will get too out of hand, as this isn't actually a proper sport against an opposition.

Commitment to numerous goals over many years greatly affects an athlete's sprts performance. In competition with these goals the athlete will have many aspects of daily life to manage. The many competing interests and commitments include work, studies, family/partner, friends, social life and other hobbies.

Within the athlete's sport, commitment can be undermined by:

•a perceived lack of progress or improvement
•not being sufficiently involved in developing the training program
•not understanding the objectives of the training program
•injury
•lack of enjoyment
•anxiety about performance - competition
•becoming bored
•coach athlete not working as a team
•lack of commitment by other athletes

Setting goals with the athlete will raise their feelings of value, give them joint ownership of the goals and therefore become more committed to achieving them.

Many people (coach, medical support team, manager, friends, etc) can contribute to an athlete's levels of commitment with appropriate levels of support and positive feedback, especially during times of injury, illness and poor performance.

Commitment will not be a big issue here. But I have to make sure that the people are trying as hard as possible and are commited to spending the time carrying out the experiment properly.

The 4C's, Concentration, Confidence, Control, Commitment http://www.brianmac.co.uk/psych.htm

I could actually use some of this information for when I go and play sport. Especially for soccer tomorrow. Handy.