Moderating variables in the relationship between mental toughness and performance in basketball

Purpose： This study explored the relationship between mental toughness and college basketball performance, specifically examining possible moderating variables （gender and starting status）. Methods： Male and female （n = 197） college basketball players completed the Psychological Performance Inventory-Alternative （PPI-A）, a measure of characteristics and skills consistent with mental toughness, and the PERK an objective measure of basketball performance. Results： Findings suggest that basketball performance can be partially predicted by mental toughness and starting status. Males reported greater mental toughness than females. Starters and nonstarters did not differ in mental toughness. Moderated hierarchical regression analysis indicated that mental toughness was related to performance for male players as both a main effect and interaction with starter status. For female players, in contrast, starter status was the only significant predictor of performance. Practitioners are encouraged to foster the psychological skills associated with mental toughness in females and non-starters in basketball. Conclusion： Discussion of the PPI-A as a measure of mental toughness and suggestions for its improvement are explored. A need exists for additional research on mental toughness and objective performance, as performance enhancement is a major impetus for research on mental toughness. Copyright @ 2012, Shanghai University of Sport. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Effects of Pre-Task Planning on Second Language Writing:A Systematic Review of Experimental Studies

There are both pedagogical and theoretical grounds for asking second language writers to plan before they start writing.The question then arises whether pre-task planning(PTP)improves written output.To address this question,this article reviewed 32 studies by comparing the effect of PTP either with no planning or with unpressured online planning(OLP).These studies also investigated the moderating effect of variables relating to the writer participants,the nature of the planning,and the writing tasks.The main findings are:(1)There is no clear evidence that PTP leads to better overall writing quality when this is measured using rating rubrics,(2)PTP generally results in more fluent writing,(3)its impact on syntactical and lexical complexity is inconsistent and negligible,(4)OLP does sometimes result in increased linguistic accuracy,and(5)there is insufficient evidence to reach clear conclusions about the role that moderating variables have on the impact of PTP,but the results suggest that collaborative(as opposed to individual planning)can lead to increased accuracy and that PTP tends to lead to more complex language when the writing task is a complex one.The article concludes with a set of principles to ensure better quality research and three general proposals for the kind of future research needed.

Market Orientation and Business Performance in the Container Port Industry

Identification and responsiveness towards customer needs is a notion that rests deeply in the heart of the marketing concept, and has been discussed in various fields of business and economic literature. At the same time literature in port economics and management has proposed various means for analyzing market conditions, overcoming competitive pressures in the port industry and pursuing sustainable competitive advantage. In line with this discussion, albeit with a significant time delay, port economics and management literature has also proposed the use of marketing strategies as a strategic tool towards achieving port competitiveness. However, the early approaches to port marketing, mainly based on consumer marketing principles, where followed by scarce references, mainly dealing with particularities of marketing implementation in ports and terminals. This paper attempts to provide a solid theoretical background to the notion, the need and the applicability of the marketing concept in the container port industry. It investigates the preconditions under which port marketing strategies are designed and formulated, by measuring the level of market orientation of ports and terminals. Furthermore, it attempts to examine the impact of market orientation on port performance, under the mediating role of marketing tactics and the moderating effect of the ports＇/terminals＇ internal and external environment.