Rate My Professor Chris Button

Professor Chris Button holds the position of Professor in the School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Otago, where he has been a faculty member since 2003. He earned his BSc(Hons) and PhD from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2000 and previously worked at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. At Otago, he has held key appointments including Dean of the School from 2017 to 2021, Director of the Human Performance Centre, and Co-Director of the Lifestyles in NZ research group. Button serves on the Executive Committee of the Australasian Skill Acquisition Network and is Section Editor for the New Zealand Journal of Sport and Exercise Sciences. He has previously acted as Associate Editor of the European Journal of Sport Science and editorial advisor for Frontiers in Psychology. He has received research grants from Sport NZ, ACC, and Water Safety New Zealand, and provided consultancy to organizations including the New Zealand Ministry of Health, Water Safety NZ, Netball NZ, New Zealand Football, and the Boston Celtics.

Button's research specializations include movement coordination and variability, skill learning, coaching, water safety, and survival skills, applying an Ecological Dynamics framework to sport contexts. His work in motor control and learning has garnered over 16,700 citations on Google Scholar. Key publications encompass textbooks such as "Dynamics of Skill Acquisition: A Constraints-Led Approach" (2008, Human Kinetics; 2nd edition 2020), "Nonlinear Pedagogy in Skill Acquisition: An Introduction" (2021, Routledge), "Complex Systems in Sport" (2013, Routledge), and peer-reviewed papers including "Key Properties of Expert Movement Systems in Sport: An Ecological Dynamics Perspective" (Seifert, Button, & Davids, 2013, Sports Medicine), "The Role of Nonlinear Pedagogy in Physical Education" (2007, Review of Educational Research), "Examination of Gaze Behaviors under In Situ and Video Simulation Task Constraints" (2010, Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics), and "Application of Ecological Dynamics Principles to Drowning Prevention" (Button et al., 2022, Asian Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology). He teaches courses such as SPEX 102: Principles of Exercise for Health and Performance, SPEX 202: Movement Analysis and Control, SPEX 311: Sports Technology, SPEX 316: Practicum, and SPEX 401: Research Methods for Sport, Exercise and Health.