Duncan Mascarenhas
duncan mascarenhas

Dr Duncan Mascarenhas

Associate Professor

 0131 455 3513

  D.Mascarenhas@napier.ac.uk

   

Biography

Duncan is an Associate Professor of Sport & Exercise Psychology and Coaching at Edinburgh Napier University. He is a Chartered Psychologist with over 20 years of experience working with elite sports officials. His research has primarily focused on developing decision making under pressure and game management in match officials. He has provided psychological support to the Rugby Football Union Elite Referee Unit and has worked with a wide variety of match officials in the northern and southern hemisphere. He completed a post-doc research project with New Zealand Soccer referees investigating the effect of physical performance upon decision-making. Duncan is a former video producer and uses his expertise in video production and editing to develop online learning materials for coaches & sports officials.

In addition to his ongoing research interests in high-pressure decision making, communication and game management, Duncan is also involved in research into mental well-being for sports officials, emotional intelligence and recruitment of female officials. He has junior international experience as a basketball and touch rugby referee.


Clients include:
Rugby Football Union (RFU)
Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) High Performance Referees
New Zealand Rugby (NZR)
Rugby Football League Match Officials
Football Association of Wales (FAW)
Netball New Zealand
England Netball
Scottish Basketball
Basketball England
England Hockey (NPUA)
New Zealand Football
Cricket Scotland
England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) Association of Cricket Officials
Lawn Tennis Association

School

Research Groups

Research Areas

Esteem

Conference Organising Activity

  • Concepts of co-construction in match interactions between high performing rugby union match officials and players.

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • SportScotland BASEM & BASES 1st Place Prizewinner for presentation - Training coherent decision-making in rugby union referees

 

Invited Speaker

  • Keynote Presentation at Lawn Tennis Association National Conference
  • Scottish Rugby Union Elite Referee Panel Conference
  • PERF Arbitrage (Referee High Performance Centre, Clermont-Ferrand) workshop on developing sports officiating excellence.
  • The Future of Training Specialst & Expert Organ Retrieval Teams in the use of Novel Technologies and Practices.
  • University of Gloucester Referee Scholarship Programme. Communication Skills for Sports Officials
  • National Programme Umpiring Association (England Hockey NPUA). Verbal Communication
  • England Netball High Performance Conference (Netball Superleague Umpires). Coping with Pressure
  • First International Conference on the Science & Practice of Sports Officiating
  • England Netball High Performance Conference (Netball Superleague Umpires). Decision Training for Elite Umpires
  • University of Gloucester Referee Scholarship Programme. What can sports science research do for sports officials?
  • Sports Officials UK Keynote Presentation
  • England Netball High Performance Conference (Netball Superleague Umpires). Mental Toughness Training for Elite Umpires
  • University of Gloucester Referee Scholarship Programme. Sports Officials & Officiating: Science & Practice
  • Inaugural Sports Coaching Conference, Llandrillo College Wales, Keynote Presentation

 

Media Activity

  • Video: Verbal Communication for Hockey Umpires

 

Membership of Professional Body

  • British Psychological Society
  • British Association of Sport & Exercise Sciences

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • External Examination PhD Jochim Spitz - Expert Perception & Performance in Elite Association Football Referees. KU Leuven University, Belgium
  • External Examination PhD Nathan Elsworthy - Factors Influencing the Physiological and Perceptual Decision-Making Demands of Australian Football Field Umpires. The University of Newcastle, Australia
  • External Examination PhD: Paul Renton - The identification of a referee practice model and a pedagogy for the coaching of rugby union referees. Cardiff Metropolitan University

 

Reviewing

  • Psychology of Sport & Exercise, Journal of Sports Sciences, International Journal of Sport Psychology, The Sport Psychologist, International Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, Journal of Sport Behavior, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, Graduate Journal of Sport Exercise & PE Research, European Journal of Sport Science, and Sport Exercise & Performance Psychology, Open Journal of Sports Sciences.

 

Visiting Positions

  • Visiting Senior Lecturer - Charles Sturt University, Australia

 

Filter by

Date


6 results

An examination of how voluntary international netball officials view and experience well-being

Journal Article
Barrow, C. J., Westbury, T., Cunningham, I., & Mascarenhas, D. (in press)
An examination of how voluntary international netball officials view and experience well-being. Managing Sport and Leisure, https://doi.org/10.1080/23750472.2024.2326704
Research aim The purpose of this research was to explore the views and experiences of international volunteer netball officials about their well-being and its contributing fac...

First-person video recordings with eye tracking glasses and cognitive task analysis as a framework for referee decision training

Journal Article
Mascarenhas, D., Birtwhistle, J., & Martindale, A. (in press)
First-person video recordings with eye tracking glasses and cognitive task analysis as a framework for referee decision training. Managing Sport and Leisure, https://doi.org/10.1080/23750472.2022.2134186
Rationale In comparison to players little is known about how sports officials integrate perception and cognition to manage in-game decisions. Design Using a naturalistic appr...

Sport officials' strategies for managing interactions with players: Face-work on the front-stage

Journal Article
Cunningham, I., Simmons, P., & Mascarenhas, D. (2018)
Sport officials' strategies for managing interactions with players: Face-work on the front-stage. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 39, 154-162. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2018.08.009
Communication is central to managing perceptions of fairness and performance in sport officiating. Most of the few studies that focus on sport official communication have been...

Developing team decision-making: a holistic framework integrating both on-field and off-field pedagogical coaching processes

Journal Article
Richards, P., Collins, D., & Mascarenhas, D. R. D. (2017)
Developing team decision-making: a holistic framework integrating both on-field and off-field pedagogical coaching processes. Sports Coaching Review, 6(1), 57-75. https://doi.org/10.1080/21640629.2016.1200819
This paper explores the complexity of developing decision- making (DM) skills in team sports. Research from the domains of motor control, perception and pedagogy ( Teaching Ga...

Exploring player communication in interactions with sport officials

Journal Article
Mascarenhas, D., Cunningham, I., Simmons, P., & Redhead, S. (2015)
Exploring player communication in interactions with sport officials. Movement and Sport Sciences - Science and Motricité, 87(87), 79-89. https://doi.org/10.1051/sm/2014021
Abstract. oðciating, but player-oðcial in- teraction is diðcult to train and unresearched. This study interviewed team captains from di erent sports and used video elicitation...

Skilled interaction: Concepts of communication and player management in the development of sports officials

Journal Article
Cunningham, I., Simmons, P., Mascarenhas, D., & Redhead, S. (2014)
Skilled interaction: Concepts of communication and player management in the development of sports officials. International Journal of Sport Communication, 7(2), 166-187. https://doi.org/10.1123/IJSC.2013-0098
Communication and player management are integral to effective sport of ciating, but most research has focused on physical performance and decision making. The few previous stu...

Pre-Napier Funded Projects

  • England Cricket Association of Sports Officials (ECB ACO)
  • Sport & Recreation New Zealand (SPARC) Grant for Netball New Zealand
  • Sport & Recreation New Zealand (SPARC) Grant for Soccer NZ
  • Rugby Football League Superleague Referees Applied Research Project
  • Helping the Man in the Middle, Rugby Football Union Applied Research Project
  • Helping the Man in the Middle, Rugby Football Union Applied Research Project
  • English Volleyball Association

Current Post Grad projects

Non-Napier PhD or MSc by Research supervisions

  • MPhil Jon Hughes - An exploratory study to identify the fundamental skills necessary in self-defence training. Wrexham Glyndwr University
  • Phd Ian Cunningham - Becoming a skilled communicator in sport officiating: Concepts, experiences, and contextualised practice. Charles Sturt University, Australia