Design of a Tennis-Specific Agility Test (TAT) for Monitoring Tennis Players

Agility is an important ability for tennis players. To be successful in the rallies, players must perform rapid, multidirectional movements in response to the ball and/or the position of the opponent. For a test to be representative in monitoring agility performance, it should capture a combination of the physical and cognitive agility performance. Considering that literature reports no reliable and valid sport-specific agility test for tennis, the aim of this article was to design and evaluate the measurement properties of a Tennis-specific Agility Test (TAT). To evaluate the TAT, test-retest reliability, concurrent validity, and feasibility were assessed. For reproducibility, a two-way mixed ANOVA was performed. Concurrent validity was assessed using Pearson correlations. A total of 69 tennis players participated in this study of whom 16 competed at the international (22 ± 3.7 years, playing level (Dynamic Rating System): .8 ± .3), 43 at the national (14 ± 1.4 years, playing level: 4.6 ± 1.4), and 10 at the regional level (15 ± 0.8 years, playing level: 4.9 ± 1.1). Test-retest reliability was found to be moderate with an Intra-Class Correlation coefficient (ICC) of .74 (p < .01) and a percentual minimal detectable change (%MDC) of 6.2%. Concurrent validity was found to be moderate by comparison with a recognised agility test, the Spider Drill, which measures only the physical component (.70; p < .01), and by comparison with tennis performance for both boys (r = .67; p < .01) and girls (r = .72; p < .01). The feasibility was high with short time for preparation (five to ten minutes) and time per participant (<5 minutes). In conclusion, the TAT shows promising results for assessing sport-specific agility performance in tennis making it likely to be used in the practical setting.

Slow Education and Cognitive Agility

Governance of cyberpower from a military perspective are focused on the efforts to control and influence events occurring in cyberspace. For the Norwegian Defence, this means educating cyber engineers, responsible for governing cyberpower effects, beyond technical skills and competencies. To match the complexity of modern warfighting necessitates adaptive high-order thinking skills. Building on earlier cognitive engineering and human factors research in cyber defence this article suggests how Slow Education has the potential to improve cognitive performance among cyber cadets. Slow techniques were applied to 37 cyber cadets during a three-year bachelor programme at the Norwegian Defence Cyber Academy. The quantitative data for this study was gathered during a two-week Cyber Defence Exercise. Combining and applying a novel pedagogic method with psychological techniques suggests reflective pondering, self-regulation and metacognition as being associated with cognitive agility. This study helps develop and make metrics available that are suitable to evaluate human performance in cyber defence.

The increased international propensity of serial entrepreneurs demonstrating ambidextrous strategic agility

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze whether business owners that simultaneously demonstrate past entrepreneurial experience and process agility have greater export propensity levels.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed hypotheses are tested using binary choice models relating past entrepreneurial experience and reported process agility on a unique sample of 246 Catalan business owners for the year 2010.FindingsConsistent with the theoretical arguments on the relevance of generative-based cognitive agility, the results of this paper reveal that serial entrepreneurs demonstrate a greater export propensity. Additionally, the authors found that serial entrepreneurs who also demonstrate process agility show superior export propensity levels, compared to the group of business owners outside this ambidextrous group (first-time business owners without process agility).Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this study indicate that traits characterizing international marketing agility, decisional speed and accuracy are also linked with greater export propensity levels. The added export market expansion resulting from the opportunity responsiveness of serial entrepreneurs is found to be amplified by the accuracy of internal adaptation capabilities of process agility.Practical implicationsTherefore, the promotion of ambidextrous strategic agility coming from the complementarities between the benefits of entrepreneurial experience and adaptive process abilities is essential for increasing businesses’ internationalization.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the literature by further exploring the influence of different sources of agility on the internationalization of entrepreneurial ventures and opens a link between entrepreneurs prone toward export market expansion and international marketing agility.

Slow Education and Cognitive Agility

Governance of cyberpower from a military perspective are focused on the efforts to control and influence events occurring in cyberspace. For the Norwegian Defence, this means educating cyber engineers, responsible for governing cyberpower effects, beyond technical skills and competencies. To match the complexity of modern warfighting necessitates adaptive high-order thinking skills. Building on earlier cognitive engineering and human factors research in cyber defence this article suggests how Slow Education has the potential to improve cognitive performance among cyber cadets. Slow techniques were applied to 37 cyber cadets during a three-year bachelor programme at the Norwegian Defence Cyber Academy. The quantitative data for this study was gathered during a two-week Cyber Defence Exercise. Combining and applying a novel pedagogic method with psychological techniques suggests reflective pondering, self-regulation and metacognition as being associated with cognitive agility. This study helps develop and make metrics available that are suitable to evaluate human performance in cyber defence.

Predicting real-time adaptive performance in a dynamic decision-making context

Individuals in organizations must frequently enact a series of ongoing decisions in real-time dynamic contexts. Despite the increasing need for individuals to manage dynamic decision-making demands, we still understand little about individual differences impacting performance in these environments. This paper proposes a new construct applicable to adaptation in such real-time dynamic environments. Cognitive agility is a formative construct measuring the individual capacity to exhibit cognitive flexibility, cognitive openness and focused attention. This study predicts that cognitive agility will impact adaptive performance in a real-time dynamic decision-making microworld computer game called the Networked Fire Chief; a simulation developed to study and train Australian fire fighters. Cognitive agility, operationalized through three distinct methods (performance measures, self-reports and external-rater reports), explained unique variance beyond measures of general intelligence on the total score of adaptive performance in the microworld.