Browsing by Author "Job McIntosh, Christiane"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Aging Female Athletes: The Challenges of Performance, Policy and the Pursuit of Health
    (2016-02-02) Job McIntosh, Christiane; Dr. Brown, Douglas; Culos-Reed, S. Nicole; Dr. Vertinsky, Patricia; Dr. Doyle-Baker, Patricia
    The growing population of older competitive athletes presents an opportunity for exploring the ways older people negotiate the social construction of aging. It also presents an opportunity to explore the function of high-performance physical activity in aging. This dissertation seeks to investigate the narratives of women (60+) as they discuss their pursuit of sport and activity at the highest levels. Specifically, I explore how older women construct and maintain an athletic identity, in a Canadian sporting culture where policies supporting both sport for participation and sport for performance have impacted opportunities. For women beyond menopause, it is evident that individuals can achieve significant health and strength benefits from exercise and participation in sport. In Masters Championships, in a variety of sports, senior women athletes are demonstrating that they do not need to accept a major decline of aerobic power and muscle strength as an inevitable feature of aging. They are demonstrating that they are capable of conditioning their bodies through rigorous training regimens (Kirby & Kluge, 2013; Pfister, 2012). They are a testament to the remarkable resilience of the human body when it is properly maintained and to the role of sport in successful aging (Akkari, Machin & Tanaka, 2015; Baker, Horton & Weir, 2010; Bülow & Söderqvist, 2014). This research highlights how the experiences and embodied knowledge of the participants in my study have facilitated their continued participation in sport and the maintenance of an athletic identity across the course of their lives. Specifically, I explore the ways participants maintain their sporting bodies and athletic identities. My findings show that my participants tend to identify as outsiders within the current Canadian sporting context. They also reveal that healthy living discourses were an important motivation for prolonged involvement in sport. A considerable focus of this dissertation is directed at understanding how participants construct and maintain identities that address the discourses of sport for performance and sport for health. In doing this I show that Masters sport provides a site for the formation of multiple interpretations and constructions of sporting identities throughout the course of one’s life.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Late Life Search Strategy
    (2016-11) Fiest, Kirsten; Job McIntosh, Christiane; Stelfox, H. Thomas; Parsons Leigh, Jeanna
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Towards the Development of Valid, Reliable, and Acceptable Tools for Assessing the Outcomes and Impacts of Health Research Partnerships
    (2022-07-05) Mrklas, Kelly; Hill, Michael D; Graham, Ian D; Raffin Bouchal, Shelley; Tonelli, Marcello; Job McIntosh, Christiane; Lockwood, Craig
    Background Researchers and their partners need access to high quality assessment tools to demonstrate the tangible outcomes and impacts of their work. As health research partnership approaches grow in popularity and mandated use, so too will the demand for tools to systematically measure their effects. This thesis surveyed literature spanning partnership traditions to locate and examine the globally available tools for assessing health research partnership outcomes and impacts. It systematically identified and assessed tools and tool characteristics (conceptual, psychometric, pragmatic), terminology, use of theories, models and frameworks, and examined the nature of outcomes and impacts arising from studies using tools with known characteristics. Methods We searched four electronic databases (Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL+, PsychINFO) from inception to June 2021 without limits, and guided by an a priori protocol and search strategy. We retained studies involving a health research partnership, the development, use, and/or assessment of tools to evaluate partnership outcomes and impacts as a study aim, studies that reported empirical psychometric evidence (manuscript 2), and those with explicit conceptual foundations, empirical psychometric evidence, and pragmatic characteristics (manuscript 3). Study quality was assessed in both systematic reviews. Results Of 56123 total citations, we screened 36027 de-duplicated records, yielding 2784 full text records, ultimately retaining 169, 49, and 37 eligible studies, respectively. Studies were largely North America-centric, and published in English, after 2010. The tools we located were mostly bespoke (205); few had distinguishing conceptual, psychometric, and pragmatic features (58). The research revealed persistent measurement challenges across partnership traditions, including non-standard terminology, inconsistent reporting and use of term definitions, insufficient psychometric/pragmatic tools and a lack of quantitative methods and deliberate focus on tool development, testing, and use, among others. As compared with other historical reviews, very few of the identified studies and tools overlapped; yet the key messages regarding the need to evolve measurement and tool development were the same. Conclusions Dedicated, collaborative efforts among research partnership traditions are required to coordinate the advancement of partnership measurement and science, and to tackle complex outcomes and impacts measurement challenges in this rapidly expanding research field.