Professor Anthony Watt

Professor Anthony Watt is the Associate Dean of Research and Research Training in the College of Arts, Business, Law, Education and IT at Victoria University.

His research work is in the areas of the design and development of assessment instruments in sport psychology, student engagement in physical education, and childhood physical activity.

His teaching focuses on the key practices associated with the teaching of physical education at the primary and secondary school levels.

He has supervised six doctoral theses to completion and has published two books, two book chapters and 25 journal articles in the area of physical education, motor control, and sport psychology.

Anthony has strong international links with researchers in Estonia, Finland and Poland.

At a personal level, he maintains a keen interest in sport, music and travel.

Recent publications

Refereed journal articles

Soini, M., Jaakkola, T., Liukkonen, J., Yli-Piipari, S. & Watt, A. (2014). Factorial validity and internal consistency of the motivational climate in physical education scale. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine (Published on line 23.12.13).

Koehn, S., Morris, T. & Watt, A. P. (2013). Flow state in self-paced and externally-paced performance contexts: an examination of the flow model. Psychology of Sport and Exercise. 14(6): pp.787-795.

Soini, A., Tammelin, T., Sääkslahti, A., Watt, A., Kettunen, T., Mehtälä, A., & Poskiparta, M. (2013). Seasonal and daily variation in physical activity among Finnish 3-year-old preschool children. Early Child Development and Care. doi:10.1080/03004430.2013.804070

Thomson K., & Watt, A. (2013). Investigating cognitive style differences in the perception of biological motion associated with visuospatial decision-making. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 44(1), 50-55.

Riuz, M. & Watt, A. (2012). Translation and reliability of the preliminary Spanish version of the Sport Imagery Questionnaire. Advances in Physical Education, 2(2), 73-75.

Books 

Thomson, Kaivo and Watt, Anthony P, eds. (2010) Connecting Paradigms of Motor Behaviour to Sport and Physical Education. Tallinn University Press , Tallinn, Estonia. ISBN 9789985507041

Morris, Tony, Spittle, Michael and Watt, Anthony P (2005) Imagery in sport. Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL. ISBN 9780736037525

Refereed chapters

Watt, A. (2013). The importance of Physical Education: How to promote healthy living in the classroom (pp. 109-128). In T. McKenna, M. Cacciattolo, and M. Vicars. (Eds). Engaging the disengaged: Inclusive approaches that give voice to the least advantaged. Cambridge University Press.

Watt, A. P., Morris, T. & Koehn, S. (2010). Developing scripts for imagery training in motor learning. In K. Thomson, & A. Watt (Eds.) Connecting paradigms of motor behaviour to sport and physical education. (pp. 159-175). Tallinn, Estonia: TLU Press.

Conference presentations

Ruiz, M. & Watt, A. P. (2013). Factor Structure and Internal Consistency of the Spanish Version of the Sport Imagery Questionnaire. ISSP World congress of Sport Psychology, Beijing, China.

Watt, A. P. (2013).Considering Alternatives in the Delivery of Physical Education Teacher Education. AIESEP International conference, Warsaw, Poland

Watt, A. P. (2011). Qualitative Evidence of Imagery Processing in Sport. ASPASP Conference, Taipei, Taiwan.

Spittle, S., Watt, A. P., & Spittle, M. (2011). The development of a questionnaire to measure the confidence of teachers to teach primary school physical education. In Graham D. Dodd (Ed), Moving, Learning, and Achieving: Proceedings of the 27th ACHPER International Conference (pp. 248-254). Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, Adelaide, Australia.

Watt, A. P., & Jaakkola, T. T (2009). Physical, psychological, and pedagogical characteristics of Finnish physical education. In Thomas F. Cuddihy and Eric Brymer (Eds), Creating Active Futures: Proceedings of the 26th ACHPER International Conference (pp. 87-94). School of Human Movement Studies, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.

View a full list of Associate Professor Watt's publications.

Teaching responsibilities

Associate Professor Watt teaches:

• Approaches to Teaching and Learning 1 - AEG 5109
• Approaches to Teaching and Learning 2 - AEG 5110.

Coordination

He is the Course Coordinator for the Master of Teaching and coordinates the physical education programs in the College of Arts, Business, Law, Education and IT.

Postgraduate research students and fellows

Completions

Principal supervision of 2 students and co-supervision of 4 students.

Current supervision

Principal supervision of 6 Doctoral students, co-supervision of 3 Doctoral students, supervision of 4 Masters students.

Research grants

• Damian Farrow, Remco Polman, Anthony Watt, Clare MacMahon, and Loretta Konjarski (2011). ($220,000) Validation of "Playing for life" philosophy for children aged 5-12 years old. Australian Sports commission, Canberra, Australia.
• An evaluation of the literacy development and school engagement of indigenous middle years students using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) pedagogy. Catholic Education Office, Victoria, Australia.
• Anthony Watt, and Andrea Nolan (2012) ($4000). An evaluation of 3-year-old children´s physical activity levels in both the day care centre and home settings. School of Education Research Seeding Grant, School of Education, Victoria University, Australia.

Professional memberships

• Australian Council of Health Physical Education and Recreation
• International Association for Physical Education in Higher Education
• International Society of Sport Psychology
• School council of Maribyrnong College – Specialist Sport School.

Industry experience

• Secondary School teacher (15 years)
• Secondary School coordinator (2 years)
• Senior Researcher University of Jyvaskyla, Finland (2 years).