Sports Official Decision-Making is a timely text that will help officiating educators and academics better account for decision-making demands and constraints in performance to reimagine and enhance tools and approaches to assist with the transfer of skills from off-field training processes to on-field performance. This centres on the alignment between explicit and implicit methods to develop decision-making skill and criteria for its assessment and evaluation in successful performance whilst also reflecting on the way other occupational domains treat decision-making training by providing examples of practice and testing.

The book cuts across sports, competitive levels and evolution of approaches within the sport industry, implementing knowledge translation principles to ensure the book is useful for improving performance amongst sports officials at any level. As such, the book has distinct sections to separate and address aspects of sport-specific characteristics of sport official decision process, what we should aim to train and monitor as criteria for decision-making performance improvement

Delivering cutting edge research and amalgamates the research into defined areas into concepts that can be applied to officiating or applied work with officiating populations that are sport-specific, Sports Official Decision-Making will be key reading for sport science academics and students around the world as well as sports officials, officiating educators and sport managers.

Ian Cunningham is a Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology and Well-being in Sport at Edinburgh Napier University. Ian’s applied research bridges theory and practice, focusing on decision making, player communication strategies, psychological skills, and technology use in training to optimize sports official performance. Over the previous 15 years, Ian has collaborated with national sport governing bodies and elite officiating talent development programs across Canada, the UK, France, and Australia on initiatives for performance development, mental health, and retention. His research has contributed to the design of learning tools and resources for sport organizations, including the Federation of International Hockey, Australian Sports Commission, Korean Sports Promotion Foundation, and Basketball/Baseball Canada. Ian is currently an educator for the world’s first Master’s degree program in Performance Enhancement in Sports Officiating, working alongside officials and administrators from international sport organizations.

Aden Kittel is a Lecturer (Motor Learning and Development) in the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at Deakin University, and a researcher in the Centre for Sport Research within the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition. Aden completed his PhD in 2021, investigating decision-making assessment and development in Australian rules football umpires, with a particular emphasis on innovative technologies such as 360VR. Aden has presented at several international conferences, including receiving the Best Student Investigator Award at the World Congress on Science & Football (2019) for his work on developing a 360VR decision-making assessment tool for Australian football umpires. Aden umpired Australian football at various levels for 13 years, alongside dabbling in cricket umpiring and touch football refereeing. He has also developed a new unit at Deakin University titled "Developmental Approaches to Coaching and Officiating in Sport", that educates students in various aspects related to officiating development, including decision-making skill.

Duncan Mascarenhas 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 effective communication in sports officiating. He has provided evidence-based training to a wide variety of match officials in the northern and southern hemisphere, developing high pressure decision-making, psychological skills and effective player management strategies. Duncan is a former video producer and uses his expertise in video production and editing to develop online learning materials for coaches & sports officials. He is now the Programme Leader of the world’s first Master’s degree for sports officials (MSc Performance Enhancement in Sports Officiating), designed to enhance performance in match officials across the globe. In addition to his ongoing research interests in decision making and communication, Duncan is also involved in research into mental well-being for sports officials, emotional intelligence, recruitment of female officials and the use of technology for developing match officials. He is a qualified association football referee and squash umpire, and has junior international experience as a basketball and touch (rugby) referee.

Clare MacMahon is an Associate Professor in Sport and Exercise Science at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, where she runs the Skilled Performance Lab. She is active internationally in skill acquisition, for example, as a founding executive committee member of the Australasian Skill Acquisition Network (established in 2007), that brings sports practitioners together with researchers in this area of work. Clare’s background combining Psychology and Human Movement studies in Talent Development and Judgment and Decision Making has allowed her to focus on and contribute to the research and scholarship in training and expertise in Sports Officiating over the last several decades, for which she has a strong international reputation. In Clare’s research she has collaborated with sport at all levels, including elite Australian Sports such as the Australian Football League, Australian Institute of Sport, and Tennis Australia, and international bodies such as the Canadian Football League, UEFA, and FIFA. Clare’s main driving interest is understanding how humans can perform complex skills that have motor and cognitive components, and how factors, such as mental fatigue, can influence this.

Paul Larkin is a Senior Researcher at Victoria University and the lead researcher at the Maribyrnong Sports Academy Research Centre, where he develops research projects which can have a direct impact on youth athletes and coaches. He is a member of the Talent Identification and Development Environments in Sports (TIDES) network, and looks to explore research which addresses practical problems. Paul has over 15 years experience working and researching with sports officiating communities, namely Australian Football umpires, with an emphasis on understanding their decision-making performance. Paul also has a passion for talent identification and recruitment to help understand effective strategies to identify, recruit and retain potential officiating talent. Through his research, Paul has worked with many different industry partners, including, Australian Football League, Professional Footballers Association, Football Australia, and FIFA.