Game Nexus

Selecting the head coach of a national football team is a high-consequence governance decision in which technical evaluation intersects with leadership, organizational strategy, financial capacity, stakeholder pressure, media scrutiny, and socio-cultural expectations. This study developed and examined an integrated model of the determinants influencing national team coach selection in Iranian football. A sequential exploratory mixed-methods design was used. In the qualitative phase, 34 experts drawn from university faculties, the football federation, professional clubs, national-level coaching, elite playing, licensed agency work, sport media, and supporter associations participated in semi-structured interviews. Grounded theory procedures involving open, axial, and selective coding were used to identify the principal categories and their relationships. The resulting framework informed a questionnaire administered to 396 football stakeholders in the quantitative phase, and the proposed structure was examined using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The findings characterized coach selection as a multidimensional governance process. Technical and professional competence, previous coaching performance, and leadership qualities formed the central candidate-level determinants. Organizational governance and financial feasibility shaped the formal decision environment, while media influence, political and institutional pressures, stakeholder networks, and socio-cultural expectations affected perceived legitimacy and final appointment choices. Technical competence and previous performance emerged as the most prominent determinants, but their influence was conditioned by governance quality and contextual pressures. The integrated model offers football federations a basis for transparent, competency-oriented, and strategically aligned recruitment procedures. It also extends sport governance and human resource management scholarship by explaining coach appointment as an interaction among candidate capital, institutional arrangements, and external legitimacy.

Entry-level coaching courses frequently emphasize sport-specific rules and technical instruction, although coaches are also expected to manage relationships, emotions, teams, professional development, and technology. This study identified the components that should be included in effective coaching-skills education for participants in Level 3 coaching courses in Kermanshah Province, Iran. An exploratory qualitative design was used. Fifteen experts in coach education and development were recruited through criterion-based purposive and snowball sampling. Participants included experienced coaches, coach educators and evaluators, sport administrators, university faculty members, and specialists in sport psychology and sport management. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews lasting 45–60 minutes. Data collection and analysis proceeded concurrently. Thematic saturation was observed after the twelfth interview, and three additional interviews were conducted to confirm the stability of the findings. The data were analyzed inductively using Braun and Clarke’s six-phase thematic analysis. Credibility was supported through pilot interviews, participant review of preliminary findings, expert review, field notes, and independent recoding of selected interviews. Intercoder agreement was 80%. Eight main themes and 16 subthemes were identified: (1) specialized and scientific coaching knowledge; (2) communication and interpersonal skills; (3) leadership and team-management competencies; (4) emotional intelligence and coach self-regulation; (5) experiential learning and reflective practice; (6) career management and professional development; (7) technology and contemporary instructional approaches; and (8) contextual and environmental factors. Together, the themes contained 80 initial codes. Level 3 coach education should move beyond the transmission of technical knowledge. A competency-based curriculum should integrate scientific literacy, communication, leadership, emotional regulation, reflective learning, career planning, digital competence, ethical practice, and context-sensitive application. The framework provides a basis for revising course content and assessment in Kermanshah and comparable coach-education settings.

Effective sport coaching depends on more than technical knowledge. Contemporary evidence shows that coaches influence athlete learning, motivation, well-being, safety, retention, and performance through an integrated set of professional, interpersonal, intrapersonal, ethical, and context-sensitive skills. However, coach education programs are frequently delivered as short, content-heavy courses that do not adequately translate knowledge into observable coaching behavior. This integrative review synthesizes evidence from coaching effectiveness theory, international coaching frameworks, self-determination theory, coach-athlete relationship research, coach education studies, feedback research, reflective practice, and safeguarding-oriented coaching to design a practical model for training effective skills among sport coaches. The proposed Effective Coaching Skills Training Model (ECSTM) is organized into five interdependent domains: professional-pedagogical competence, interpersonal communication and relationship building, motivational and psychosocial support, intrapersonal reflection and self-regulation, and ethical-safeguarding and digital practice. The model also specifies training mechanisms, including needs assessment, modular blended learning, deliberate practice, role play, video feedback, mentoring, peer learning, reflective portfolios, and multilevel evaluation. The review argues that effective coach education should be longitudinal, context-sensitive, behavior-focused, and evaluated through coach outcomes, athlete outcomes, and implementation sustainability. The proposed model provides a theoretically grounded and practice-oriented framework that can be tested through Delphi validation, pilot implementation, structural modeling, and longitudinal intervention studies.

Selecting a coach in professional football is a strategic managerial decision that affects technical performance, organizational stability, public legitimacy, and long-term club development. The Iranian Premier Football League requires a context-sensitive model that explains how coach-selection decisions are formed and how they can be professionalized. Objective: This study aimed to design a grounded theory model of factors affecting coach selection in the Iranian Premier Football League. A qualitative grounded theory design based on the systematic approach of Strauss and Corbin was used (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with football executives, head coaches, coaches, agents, players, and sport-management experts. Participants were selected through purposive and snowball sampling. Theoretical saturation was reached after 17 interviews, and 20 interviews were completed to enrich the data. Interviews were analyzed through open, axial, and selective coding using constant comparison. Coding trustworthiness was supported by expert review and inter-coder reliability assessment. The analysis identified approximately 175 initial codes that were refined into 116 non-repetitive open codes, 28 subcategories, and 15 main categories. These categories were organized into six paradigmatic dimensions: causal conditions, core phenomenon, contextual conditions, intervening conditions, strategies, and consequences. The model shows that professional competence and individual characteristics influence coach selection, while organizational structure, social context, informal influence, and competitive pressure shape the decision environment. The main strategies were structured evaluation, professional decision-making, and interaction management. The model provides a practical framework for clubs and football authorities to make coach selection more evidence-based, transparent, merit-oriented, and development-focused.

Contemporary education increasingly rewards measurable cognitive performance and digital competence, yet many students report low motivation, anxiety, and a weakened sense of educational purpose. The present article reconceptualizes Philosophy for Children (P4C) as a meaning-centered interactive system capable of responding to this educational meaning crisis. A qualitative theory-building design was adopted, combining systematic conceptual review with philosophical reconstruction. Literature on P4C, meaning in life, dialogic pedagogy, and interactive learning systems was examined across major scholarly databases and synthesized through thematic analysis. The review yielded three core findings: first, mainstream P4C is predominantly framed through cognitive and reasoning-based outcomes; second, current educational discourse insufficiently addresses purpose, coherence, and personal significance; and third, the P4C community of inquiry already contains the structural elements of an interactive system, including rules, roles, feedback, and collaborative interpretation. The article proposes a Meaning-Centered P4C model in which philosophical dialogue functions not only as a method for cultivating reasoning but also as a structured process of collective meaning-making. In this expanded framework, students interpret lived experience, negotiate significance, and orient themselves toward worthwhile forms of participation in a shared world. The model contributes to interdisciplinary discussions across philosophy of education, educational technology, and game-informed learning design by showing how inquiry can support both thinking and meaning.

A 12-week high-intensity interval training (HIIT) program appears to be an effective and practical strategy for improving body composition in boys aged 10–12 years. Based strictly on the results reported in the source study, 20 boys were randomly assigned to either a HIIT group or a control group, and baseline comparisons showed no significant differences between groups in age, height, weight, or body mass index, supporting the comparability of the sample before the intervention. The HIIT program was performed three times per week for 12 weeks, with each session lasting about 40 minutes and including warm-up, repeated exercise bouts with active recovery, and cool-down. After the intervention, the HIIT group showed a statistically significant reduction in body fat percentage compared with the control group (p = 0.029), while lean body mass increased significantly in the HIIT group relative to the control group (p = 0.002). In contrast, the control group did not demonstrate meaningful change, indicating that the observed improvements were associated with the exercise intervention rather than normal variation alone. These findings suggest that HIIT may offer a time-efficient method for promoting healthier body composition during childhood, which is especially important given current public health concerns about low physical activity and increasing childhood obesity. Current World Health Organization guidance recommends that children and adolescents accumulate at least 60 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity daily, including vigorous activities regularly, and systematic reviews have shown that HIIT can improve health-related fitness and selected cardio metabolic outcomes in children and adolescents, particularly in structured and school-based settings. Overall, the study supports the use of a structured HIIT protocol as a feasible, short-term, and school-compatible approach to reducing body fat and increasing lean body mass in young boys.

This study aimed to examine the effect of educational computer games on students’ academic engagement and academic self-efficacy. The present study was a quasi-experimental study conducted using a pretest–posttest design with a control group. Accordingly, the participants were assigned to two groups, namely the experimental and control groups. The experimental group received instruction through educational computer games, whereas the control group received no instruction. The study population included all students in the second cycle of secondary education. From among these students, 30 individuals were selected as the sample based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria using convenience sampling, and they were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The instruments used in the present study included the Academic Engagement Scale developed by Pintrich et al. (1991) and the Academic Self-Efficacy Scale developed by Jinks and Morgan (1999). Data analysis in the present study was conducted using SPSS version 26 at both descriptive and inferential levels. At the descriptive level, mean, standard deviation, frequency, and percentage indices were used, while at the inferential level, analysis of covariance was applied. The obtained F value was significant for both variables at the 0.05 level. Therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected, and the research hypothesis was confirmed. Considering the higher mean scores of the experimental group in the posttest phase for academic engagement and academic self-efficacy, it can be concluded that educational computer games have a significant effect on students’ academic engagement and academic self-efficacy. The results indicated that educational computer games have a significant effect on students’ academic engagement and academic self-efficacy.

The present study aimed to examine the role of the dimensions of the sport engagement model in explaining the components of social capital, namely interpersonal trust and social participation, among athletes in Mazandaran Province, Iran. This study employed a descriptive-correlational design with a quantitative approach. The statistical population consisted of active athletes across the cities of Mazandaran Province. A total of 359 participants were selected through convenience sampling. Data were collected using the Sport Engagement Model Questionnaire, comprising cultural commitment and educational commitment, as well as the Social Capital Questionnaire. Data analysis was performed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient and simultaneous multiple regression analysis. The results showed that both dimensions of sport engagement were positively and significantly associated with interpersonal trust and social participation (p < 0.001). Cultural commitment showed a strong positive correlation with interpersonal trust (r = 0.805), while educational commitment was also significantly related to interpersonal trust (r = 0.408). In addition, cultural commitment (r = 0.482) and educational commitment (r = 0.237) were positively and significantly related to social participation (p < 0.001). Multiple regression analysis indicated that the dimensions of sport engagement jointly explained 65.1% of the variance in interpersonal trust and 23.4% of the variance in social participation. Cultural commitment was the strongest predictor of interpersonal trust, whereas both cultural and educational commitment made significant contributions to the prediction of social participation. Overall, the findings suggest that greater sport engagement, particularly through strengthening cultural and educational commitment, may contribute to the enhancement of social capital in sport settings.