
Matthew NicholsonMonash University Malaysia
Matthew Nicholson
PhD
About
147
Publications
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Introduction
Publications
Publications (147)
Background
Gambling-related harm is a global challenge. Sports betting is a rapidly growing form of gambling, facilitated by access to online wagering platforms and increased advertising. Most public health initiatives target ‘problem’ gamblers, ignoring socio-cultural influences. Within this context, we examine what parents think about sports bett...
Objectives
Injury/poor health is an important barrier to women’s participation in sport and physical activity. This study aimed to identify perceived challenges sport programme deliverers face when supporting physically inactive women to prevent/manage injury.
Methods
Sport programme deliverers, targeting physically inactive women in Victoria, par...
Purpose
Mass media campaigns are recommended in the “8 best investments for physical activity”. Despite large investment in the English “This Girl Can” (TGC) campaign since 2015, no independent evaluation data are published. This project reports on the TGC campaign licenced for use in Victoria, Australia from 2018 onwards. This project reports on t...
Purpose
Engaging young people in sport and physical activity (PA) requires awareness of their preferences and priorities. This study provided less active young people (14–17 years of age) with an opportunity to articulate their perspective on an ideal sport program.
Methods
We used online concept mapping, involving qualitative data collection and...
Purpose
Safety is critical to participant recruitment and retention in social sport programs targeting insufficiently active (IA) people as their lack of fitness and limited previous exposure to physical activity likely places them at a higher risk of injury. This study sought to understand the injury prevention/management qualifications, knowledge...
Introduction:
The aim of this study was to: (i) determine the feasibility of using ecological momentary assessment to collect data from Australian Football League (AFL) fans; (ii) explore pre-game, during-game and post-game consumption patterns of AFL fans; and (iii) explore the social and setting-related factors associated with risky single occas...
Abstract Introduction Addressing gender inequalities in physical activity is an important public health goal. A major campaign, ‘This Girl Can’ (TGC) was conducted by Sport England from 2015, and TGC was licenced in 2018 by VicHealth in Australia for development and use in a 3-year mass media campaign. The campaign was adapted through formative tes...
Background
Population surveys across the world have examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health. However, few have simultaneously examined independent cross-sectional data with longitudinal data, each of which have different strengths and weaknesses and facilitate the investigation of distinct research questions. This study aimed...
Sport official's experience of abuse in their role is well documented, but the additional gendered barriers that women officials face are not. This study used Concept Mapping to explore the most important and frequent barriers that women referees and officials in Australian basketball face. Results were analyzed according to the Socio-Ecological Fr...
Research Question
Women athletes in elite leagues are increasingly viewed as professional, but often this label is aspirational and does not reflect their experience. They are rarely provided with professional working conditions, which creates barriers to becoming elite, full-time athletes. This research aimed to explore the barriers faced by Austr...
The objective of this study was to explore what coaches wanted to learn about identifying, developing, supporting and progressing athletes through a national performance pathway, before commencing a professional development course. A concept mapping (CM) design was used with Australian national sports organisation coaches undertaking an online prof...
Rates of childhood obesity within Australia continue to rise, with consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages one contributing factor. Community sport provides an opportunity to implement policies promoting water as the beverage of choice. However, the attitudes of parents toward a water-only policy are not known. This cross-sectional study aimed to...
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, elite sport leagues implemented hubs, or ‘bubbles’, which restricted athletes’ movements and social interactions in order to minimise the risk of athlete infection and allow competitions to continue. This was a new way of working and living for elite athletes and there was a dearth of literature on this topic....
Self-report measures are frequently used to assess change in physical activity (PA) levels. Given the limited data from adolescent populations, the primary objective of this study was to examine the responsiveness of a single item measure (SIM) of PA for adolescents to detect change in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) using acceleromet...
Survey responses from a sample of nearly 15,000 Australian sports fans were used to study the determinants of: (i) gambling behaviour, including if a person does gamble and the type of gambling engaged with; (ii) the number of sports and non-sports bets made over a 12-month period; and (iii) attitudes towards betting on sports. The probability of b...
Objective: To identify the challenges adult community sport participants anticipate when returning to sport in Victoria, Australia, post a COVID-19 shutdown.
Methods: Using online concept mapping, participants brainstormed challenges to returning to community sport, sorted them into groups and rated them for impact and ability/capacity to overcome....
Objective: To assess the effectiveness of interventions using a nudge approach to reduce sugar-sweetened beverage purchases in community sports settings.
Methods: A total of 155 community sporting organisations participating in VicHealth funded programs were invited to nominate a nudge based on a traffic light approach to drinks classification. The...
Rationale/Purpose
This study investigates the challenges of returning to sport after a COVID-19 shutdown of sport from the perspective of community sport clubs (CSCs). We explore the relationship between the challenges CSCs identified and the challenges the nation’s lead sport agency identified; and similarities or differences in the challenges fac...
(1) Background: Community sport settings present a range of conflicting health behaviours, including the tension between being physically active and consuming discretionary foods. Therefore, community sport settings are considered a promising location for health promotion. The aim of this project was to evaluate perceptions, knowledge and the impac...
Interagency partnerships and collaborations underpin a settings-based approach to health promotion in all settings, including sport. This study used an online concept mapping approach to explore the challenges that Regional Sports Assemblies (RSAs) in Victoria, Australia experienced when working in partnerships to develop and deliver physical activ...
There is a significant body of research that examines the antecedents and consequences of population-level disparities in physical activity engagement. However, there are still vast gendered inequalities with women missing out on the associated health benefits of physical activity compared to men. The purpose of this study is to foster a deep under...
Wrist-worn accelerometers are more comfortable and yield greater compliance than hip-worn devices, making them attractive for free-living activity assessments. However, intricate wrist movements may require more complex predictive models than those applied to hip-worn devices. This study developed a novel deep learning method that predicts energy e...
Background
Informed by literature on venue design and ‘nudging’ in the context of choice architecture, the purpose of this article is to investigate the physical design of, and practices enacted within, sports bars to provide some indication as to whether these venues are spaces that encourage risky drinking and betting.
Methods
Our analysis draws...
Objectives
To explore sports organisation members' attitudes to sponsorship of sport by energy-dense, nutrient-poor food and drink (‘junk food’) brands.
Study design
The study design is a cross-sectional study.
Methods
An online survey of adult members of three sports organisations that did not accept junk food sponsorship in Victoria, Australia...
Objective
The objective of this study was to evaluate the responsiveness of the single item measure (SIM) to detect change in PA when compared to hip-worn accelerometry. A secondary aim was to provide further data on validity of the measure at a single time point.
Methods
Validity of the SIM to determine the number of days of ≥30 minutes of accele...
A literature review commissioned by Play Australia
Two Australian football clubs—St Kilda and the Sydney Swans—played the first Pride Game in Australian professional sport in 2016 to support and include the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) community at and through a major sporting event. This study examines the framing of this game in the print and online media and...
The focus of this presentation is the experiences of currently physically 'inactive' women and the micro-level, stigmatising processes that inhibit their engagement with, and experience of, physical activity. The research is situated at the nexus of physical activity, health promotion and associated exercise is medicine discourses. The current Aust...
Objectives:
To explore the challenges that Victorian sporting organisations experience when developing, delivering or scaling non-traditional social sport products to engage insufficiently active people.
Methods:
Online Concept Mapping was used to gather qualitative data and analyse it quantitatively.
Results:
A total of 68 participants (27 or...
Women in rural and regional communities experience social, cultural, and geographical constraints to sport, physical activity, and leisure participation. This study uses leisure constraints theory to explore the development and delivery of a casual, recreational physical activity program, stand up paddleboarding, for women in regional Victoria, Aus...
Objectives
Energy-dense, nutrient-poor food and drink (‘junk food’) brands sponsoring sport is a growing public health concern. This study explored sports administrators' perceptions of the barriers to rejecting junk food sponsorship.
Study design
This study used concept mapping.
Methods
The Concept Systems Global MAX™ web platform was used to co...
Objectives: To compare accelerometry-derived estimates of physical activity from 9 wrist-specific predictive models and a reference hip-specific method. Design: Prospective cohort repeated measures study. Methods: 110 participants wore an accelerometer at wrist and hip locations for 1 week of free-living. Accelerometer data from three axes were use...
Objectives: Energy-dense, nutrient-poor food and drink (‘junk food’) brands sponsoring sport is a growing public health concern. This study explored sports administrators' perceptions of the barriers to rejecting junk food sponsorship. Study design: This study used concept mapping. Methods: The Concept Systems Global MAX™ web platform was used to c...
Coaches are essential to participant safety, particularly by implementing injury prevention programs. The evidence-based injury prevention programs developed by sports scientists will not prevent injuries in real-world sports settings if they are not properly implemented. This study investigated the knowledge and use of the highly efficacious 11+ i...
Background and aim
Understanding the barriers to programme use is important to facilitate implementation of injury prevention programmes in real-word settings. This study investigated the barriers to coaches of adolescent female soccer teams, in Victoria, Australia, implementing the evidence-based FIFA 11+ injury prevention programme.
Methods
Conc...
This study evaluated the impact of a brief (20-minute) nutrition education intervention embedded in an existing mandatory coach education course for coaches of junior (8-12 year old) Australian football teams. Two hundred and eighty-four coaches (68% of 415 coaching course participants) completed a pre-session questionnaire and 110 (27% of coaching...
Objective:
Sports clubs provide an opportunity to tackle childhood obesity rates through targeted interventions. Our study aimed to investigate if coaches providing healthy snacks to participants before junior netball sessions at five clubs in Melbourne, Australia, increased consumption of healthy foods and influenced coach perceptions of particip...
Globally, the public relations industry is overwhelmingly female, while sport media is overwhelmingly male. This positions the women who work in sport public relations at the intersection of two gendered industries. Drawing on analytic frameworks understanding organisations as gendered, this study explores the experiences of women in public relatio...
Anecdotal evidence suggests that sport organisations in Australia have taken significant control of the news agenda through the employment of media-relations managers, who deliver regular, routinised information subsidies – such as media releases and media conferences. This article explored the impact of these subsidies on the news through a survey...
This article examines the risks associated with conceptualizing the child athlete’s body primarily in aesthetic terms and as an instrument of sporting victory, and develops a concept of “athletic objectification.” It draws on a recent research project involving Australian males and females aged between 18 and 25 who participated in organized sport...
As the field of sport-for-development (SFD) has developed, there has been increasing debate over the ability of SFD programs to effect lasting structural change on target communities. Highlighting the barriers to SFD program delivery in five Pacific Island nations, in this paper we argue that numerous challenges emerging at macro-, meso-, and micro...
The purpose of this paper is to review the development of national sport policy in Vanuatu. The paper provides a brief synopsis of the development of national sport policy in Vanuatu and outlines the government’s administrative system for implementing sport policy. It provides an analysis of government policies and objectives for sport and the natu...
Research in and around sport-for-development (SFD) has increased steadily since the first scholarly work in the field was conducted in the 1990s. As SFD has grown into an established and respected area of study, it has also diversified in its research approaches and methodologies. In this article, we reflect on our experiences as researchers in low...
Sports organisations’ recently acquired ability to deliver their own news — through social and digital platforms— represents a potential paradigm shift in the once symbiotic relationship between sports organisations and the media that cover them. While sports organisations once needed the media to deliver their messages, they now have their own med...
Research question: This study contributes to the understanding of scandal in the context of elite team sport through an analysis of print media coverage of off-field instances of athlete misbehavior. Print media coverage is indicative of the types of incidents warranting primary consideration by media and sports organizations. The research question...
Substantial research indicates that women’s sports and female athletes gain only a small fraction of sports media coverage worldwide. Research that has examined why this is the case suggested this can be attributed to three particular factors that govern sports newswork: the male-dominated sports newsroom, ingrained assumptions about readership, an...
While much research has examined the composition of sport media and those charged with constructing it, namely sport journalists and editors, far less has explored an essential set of actors in the construction of news: sources. This study aimed to explore the construction of the sport media agenda from arguably the most important sport news source...
Over the past two decades there has been a growing awareness that sport may not be a positive experience for all children. For example, we know that some children experience sexual abuse in the context of organised sport, and that these offences are often committed by trusted adults, including coaches and club officials. However, less attention has...
Volunteerism is a key form of community involvement that can provide both physical and mental health benefits for volunteers as well as positive outcomes for the community. However, volunteers become involved for different reasons and recent studies suggest that other-oriented volunteers may accrue greater health benefits than self-oriented volunte...
Australia is known as a ‘sporting nation’ and sport is central to its cultural identity. Children’s participation in leisure activities, including sport, is considered to be of such importance that it is enshrined as an international human right. There is a growing awareness, however, that children’s experience of sport is not always positive and t...
Internationally, children's participation in leisure activities, including sport, is considered to be of such importance that it is enshrined as a human right. However, there is a growing awareness that children's experience of sport is not always benign; abuse and harm frequently occur within a broad range of organised sport contexts. This systema...
Developing nations increasingly use sporting mega-events to demonstrate capacity, staking a claim to a place on the ‘world map’ by participating in what has been referred to as the ‘global circus’, or alternatively, the ‘prestige model’. The 2010 Commonwealth Games, hosted by India, provide an example of a mega-event which had mixed results in term...
Despite the steady increase in volume and quality of women’s sport participation over the last century, female athletes continue to be underrepresented across all platforms of the media. A range of mechanisms have been shown to contribute to media constructions of women’s sport, including the low volume of media attention, narrative focus, prominen...
Sport and the media have long served as arenas for the development of national
identity, both of which are examined in this study of the newspaper coverage of
the 2010 FIFAWorld Cup. This article reports on the findings of a content analysis
of newspaper coverage of the FIFA World Cup; the newspaper data collected
included all major daily Australia...
The provision of sport and recreation programs to inmates within the prison system provides a unique context to investigate the role of sport in enacting social change. Three main aims of prison-based sport programs have been identified in research: inmate health and wellbeing, inmate rehabilitation, and inmate management. This paper presents four...
This article reports on research that explores whether Australian newspaper sport journalists use Web 2.0, the second generation of the internet, in their work and, if they do, how. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 27 newspaper sport journalists, three from each of the nine Australian daily newspapers with the highest circula...
This paper examines the relationship between involvement in sport and non-sport community activities and perceived social support. This paper reports on a large cross-sectional survey administered in the state of Victoria, Australia (N = 1833), which collected data on involvement, selected demographic variables and the multidimensional scale of per...
This paper focuses on spectators’ alcohol use at a regional community football (Australian Rules) club in Victoria, Australia, in the context of a season-long trial to sell only mid-strength (and not full-strength) beer at the ground during home games. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected on spectators’ alcohol choices and preferen...
This paper explores the relationship between sport and social capital by reporting on research that examined the social provisions of individuals’ involvement in sport and non-sport community organisations. Data were collected on levels of involvement in community sport and other third sector organisations, selected demographic variables, and a mea...
This article reports the findings of a study that explored the nexus between sport and social capital in Vanuatu. Specifically, it explored the social networks that operate through football, and the resources that are available to members through these networks. The research involved in-depth interviews with players and administrators within one of...
This article explores the claim that generalized trust and community participation are positively associated and reports results from a survey that collected data on individuals’ involvement in sport and non-sport community organizations. Data were collected on levels of involvement in community sport and other non-profit community organizations, s...
The aim of this article is to report the findings of a study that explored both the contributions of country race clubs to social capital within rural and regional communities as well as their utilization of social capital. The article reviews the key concepts associated with social capital and their relationships to sport, and presents evidence of...
This study examines the potentially mediated relationship between volunteering and well-being. Using survey data from a random sample (N = 2,990) of the population of the state of Victoria, Australia, three hypotheses were tested: Volunteers will report higher well-being than nonvolunteers; volunteers will report higher self-esteem, self-efficacy,...
This paper explores the relationship between involvement in sport and non-sport community organisations and social connectedness. Data were collected on types of community involvement, selected demographic variables and social connectedness. The findings support the contention that involvement in sport organisations is associated with increased lev...