Rate My Professor Ken Hodge

Professor Ken Hodge is a Professor in sport and exercise psychology at the School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Otago, New Zealand. He holds an MS from Montana State University and a PhD from the University of Illinois, USA, and joined the University in 1988. His research examines the psycho-social effects of sport participation, including motivational orientations, prosocial and antisocial behaviour, athlete burnout and engagement, lifeskill development through sport, self-esteem and moral development, motivational climates in elite teams, and sport psychology consultant effectiveness. He has collaborated internationally with researchers such as Chris Lonsdale, Elaine Hargreaves, Lee-Ann Sharp, Tom Raedeke, Sue Jackson, Steve Danish, and Tamotsu Nishida, as well as coaches from the New Zealand All Blacks Rugby Team. Hodge developed a New Zealand version of the GOAL LifeSkills Programme, contributed to the SUPER programme (Sports United for the Promotion of Education and Recreation), and served as a foreign cooperating investigator for a Japanese PE LifeSkills Programme. As a mental skills trainer, he worked with elite New Zealand athletes at the 1990, 1994, and 1998 Commonwealth Games, 1992 Summer Olympics, 2006 Winter Olympics, New Zealand Colts Rugby (2002-2005), Highlanders Super 14 Rugby Team (2010), Silver Ferns Netball (2006-2007), New Zealand Academy of Sport athletes (2002-2010), MotorSport New Zealand Academy (2002-2014), and IRB Sevens Elite Referees Squad (2014).

Hodge served as Provost of the University of Otago for nine years from 2015 until 2024, managing disciplinary hearings for student conduct breaches and contributing to pastoral care initiatives. He has been Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology (2005-2012) and serves on the editorial boards of Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, Psychology of Sport and Exercise, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, and The Sport Psychologist, while reviewing for journals such as Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology and Journal of Sports Sciences. He held leadership roles including President of the New Zealand Sport Psychology Association (1992-1996), Executive Board member of Sport and Exercise Science New Zealand (2008-2012), Deputy Chairman of the New Zealand Federation of Sports Medicine (1993-1995), and board member for Sport Otago (1998-2004). Key publications include Pierce et al. (2026) on tall poppy syndrome in elite athletes; Hodge (2025) on sports-based life skills interventions; Sharp and Hodge (2025) on self-care for sport psychologists; and editorship of the Routledge Handbook of Applied Sport Psychology (2023). His work has over 6,400 citations.