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Professor Ben Oakley

Profile summary

  • Central Academic Staff
  • Professor of Sports Performance Education
  • Faculty of Wellbeing, Education & Language Studies
  • School of Education, Childhood, Youth & Sport
  • Sport & Fitness
  • ben.oakley

Professional biography

Ben originally established the Sport and Fitness qualifications at the Open University in 2007, having previously lectured at Portsmouth and Southampton Solent Universities. Formerly he worked as National Coach in windsurfing including attending two Olympic Games. His teaching expertise in online learning includes a distinctive approach to work-related study. This has been deployed in a writing online content for a range of courses and platforms beyond the Open University for clients such as Sport England, FIFA and UNICEF and most recently he was lead academic editor for the FIFA Guardians Safeguarding Diploma.

His academic research (1997-2003) originally focused on sport policy and in particular the development of elite sport systems in different countries. More recently his enquiry has focused on articles and publications on coach development (2019), the psychology of athletic development (2021) and the evolution of windsurfing (2024). He has published six sole author or edited collection books for a range of publishers including Bloomsbury and Routledge. Ben has been an OU academic consultant for BBC and Channel 4 sport related programmes, written for the BBC Sport website and an interviewee on Radio 4 Today. 

 

Publications

Windsurfing’s Rapid Global Diffusion: The Evolution of a 1970s Technology-First Sport (2024)
Oakley, Ben
The International Journal of the History of Sport, 40(14) (pp. 1253-1271)

Barriers and facilitators to physical activity: a comparative analysis of transplant athletes competing in high intensity sporting events with other transplant recipients (2024)
Rienties, Bart; Duncan, Elaine; Judd, Perry; Oakley, Ben; Pengel, Liset H. M.; Roelen, Keetie and Topley, Nicholas
PLoS ONE, 19, Article e0307095(8)

It’s never simple! People, power and relationships in the United Kingdom Olympic sport policy system. A commentary (2024)
Moore, Lucy; Oakley, Ben and Twitchen, Alex
Journal of Sports Sciences ((Early access))

Back to the Future: Rethinking Coach Learning and Development in the UK (2019-10)
Twitchen, Alex and Oakley, Ben
Applied Coaching Research Journal, 4 (pp. 32-41)

How might online distance learning contribute to coach development (2018-10)
Oakley, Ben and Twitchen, Alex
Applied Coaching Research Journal, 2 (pp. 24-31)

What do Champions’ Autobiographical Accounts tell us About Athletes’ Learning? (2015-07-01)
Oakley, Ben
Olympic Coach, 26(2) (pp. 20-30)

Oral examination assessment practices: effectiveness and change within a first year undergraduate cohort (2005-04)
Oakley, Ben and Hencken, Clare
Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, 4(1) (pp. 3-14)

Still playing the game at arms length? The selective re-investment in British sport 1994-1999 (2001)
Oakley, Ben and Green, Michael
Managing Leisure, 6(2) (pp. 74-94)

The production of Olympic champions: international perspectives on elite sport development systems (2001)
Oakley, Ben and Green, Michael
European Journal for Sports Management (pp. 83-105)

Multiple and Multi-dimensional Life Transitions of World Transplant Athletes (2025)
Rienties, Bart; Roelen, Keetie; Oakley, Ben; Duncan, Elaine and Pengel, Liset
In: Jindal-Snape, Divya ed. The Palgrave Handbook of Multiple and Multi-Dimensional Educational and Life Transitions
Publisher : Palgrave MacMillan (In Press) | Published : London

Effective athletic development: Closing thoughts (2022-07-12)
Heaney, Caroline; Kentzer, Nichola and Oakley, Ben
In: Heaney, Caroline; Kentzer, Nichola and Oakley, Ben eds. Athletic Development: A Psychological Perspective (pp. 247-250)
ISBN : 9781003153450, 9780367721022 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : New York

Athletic development: A holistic view of the journey (2022)
Oakley, Ben
In: Heaney, Caroline; Kentzer, Nichola and Oakley, Ben eds. Athletic Development. A Psychological Perspective (pp. 5-7)
ISBN : 9781003153450, 9780367721022 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : New York

How Did We Get Here? Exploring the Evolution of Athletic Development Perspectives (2022)
Oakley, Ben
In: Heaney, Caroline; Kentzer, Nichola and Oakley, Ben eds. Athletic Development: A Psychological Perspective (pp. 20-37)
ISBN : 9781003153450, 9780367721022 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : New York

What is athletic development? (2021)
Oakley, Ben
In: Heaney, Caroline; Kentzer, Nichola and Oakley, Ben eds. Athletic Development: A Psychological Perspective (pp. 9-19)
ISBN : 9781003153450 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : New York

What makes successful sessions? (2009-07-17)
Oakley, Ben
In: Heaney, Caroline; Oakley, Ben and Rea, Simon eds. Exploring Sport and Fitness: Work-based practice (pp. 243-255)
ISBN : 978-0-415-49156-3 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon

Learning how to coach: the different learning situations reported by coaches (2009-07-17)
Wright, Trevor; Trudel, Pierre; Culver, Diane and Oakley, Ben
In: Heaney, Caroline; Oakley, Ben and Rea, Simon eds. Exploring Sport and Fitness: Work-based practice (pp. 219-229)
ISBN : 978-0-415-49155-6. | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon

Athletic Development: A Psychological Perspective (2021-07-12)
Heaney, Caroline; Kentzer, Nichola and Oakley, Ben eds.
ISBN : 9780367721022 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon

Exploring Sport and Fitness: Work-based Practice (2009-07-17)
Heaney, Caroline; Oakley, Ben and Rea, Simon eds.
ISBN : 978-0-415-49155-6 | Publisher : Routledge/The Open University | Published : Abingdon

The Sport and Fitness Sector: an Introduction (2008-04-02)
Oakley, Ben and Rhys, Martin eds.
ISBN : 978-0-415-45404-9 | Publisher : Open University/Routledge | Published : Abingdon

What do the Olympic medal tables say about your nation’s sporting priorities? (2016-07-27)
Oakley, Ben and Shibli, Simon
The Conversation, London.

The other giant leap for mankind: how this athlete set a world record that’s still standing 20 years later (2015-08-05)
Oakley, Ben
The Conversation