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Specialization pathways among Danish elite athletes: A look at the developmental model of sport participation from a cultural perspective
Abstract
The Developmental Model of Sport Participation (DMSP) (Côté, Baker, & Abernethy, 2007) outlines two specialization pathways towards elite performance, and these are presented as specific trajectories which any elite athlete’s participation in sport may take. Following a cultural turn in sport psychology, however, we must ask ourselves how culture affects the specialization pathways of elite athletes. This paper argues that specialization pathways are more unique to the individual and more culturally situated than we often acknowledge. The present study is based on in-depth interviews with 17 elite Danish athletes. Results are presented as ‘portraits’ of four types of trajectory that we term Early specialization, Late investment and playful training, Late entry into main sport, and Sampling in playful training. Discussion centres on how the study informs the notion of age cut-off points, sampling, practice and transitions in relation to DMSP and how this is linked to the cultural context.
... Flere interventionsstudier har haft positive erfaringer med at anvende de ti traek og den holistiske-økologiske tilgang i eliteidraetsmiljøer, hvor målet har vaeret at optimere miljøerne og organisationskulturen (Henriksen, 2015;Larsen, et al., 2014;Storm, 2020). Organisationskulturen i talentmiljøet er saerlig vigtig (Fletcher & Wagstaff 2009;Henriksen & Stambulova 2017;Storm et al., 2012), men samtidig ved vi, at arbejdet med at undersøge en kultur er en langsigtet proces, som kraever kvalitative metoder (fx deltagerobservationer; Schein, 1990). Vi står derfor i et dilemma, hvor vi på den ene side ikke kan undersøge en kultur gennem et spørgeskema og på den anden side heller ikke kan forkaste kulturaspektet i talentmiljøet. ...
... Dilemmaet opstod fordi et spørgeskema ikke vil kunne rumme den kompleksitet, som det kraever for at analysere en organisationskultur (Schein, 2010). På den anden side har kulturaspektet vist sig at vaere et afgørende element for et succesfuldt talentmiljø (Fletcher & Wagstaff 2009;Henriksen et al. 2010a, b;Larsen et al., 2014;Storm, et al., 2012) hvilket understreger nødvendigheden af at inkludere kulturaspektet i DTS. Med anerkendelse af, at et spørgeskema primaert kan indsamle brudstykker af miljøets kultur (Schein, 2010), bør et fremtidigt fokus vaere på at anvende DTS i talentudviklingsmiljøer sammen med mere kvalitative undersøgelser af kulturen i miljøet. ...
Introduktion: Der er efterspørgsel efter et håndgribeligt forskningsbaseret redskab til at guide forskere og praktikere i arbejdet med kompleksiteten i hele talentmiljøet. Formålet med dette studie er derfor at udvikle og teste et atlet-rapporteret redskab til at måle kendetegn og kvalitet af talentudviklingsmiljøer fra et holistisk-økologisk perspektiv.
Metode: Henriksens (2010) feltstudier, britiske TDEQ (Martindale et al., 2010), øvrig litteratur og nationale anbefalinger dannede udgangspunktet for en række items til måling af psykologiske og psykosociale aspekter ved et talentudviklingsmiljø. Indholdsvalideringen bestod af ekspert- og atletinterviews hvorefter DTS blev administreret til 15-19-årige atleter fra forskellige idrætter. Eksplorativ faktoranalyse (EFA) (N = 111) og en kvalitativ vurdering blev anvendt til at reducere antallet af items og fastlægge faktorstrukturen. Efterfølgende blev en konfirmatorisk faktoranalyse (N = 357) anvendt til at evaluere og bekræfte skalaens faktorstruktur.
Resultater: 33 items fordelt på otte faktorer viste acceptable model fit værdier, undtaget CFI (.851) og TLI (.83) der lå lige under cut-off værdien, og items viste generelt god konvergent validitet. Items mellem faktorerne viste signifikante moderate Spearman korrelationer (r = .16 - .62, p < .001) og en acceptabel Cronbach Alpha reliabilitet for syv faktorer (0.67-0.89) samt én faktor med lav reliabilitet (0.52).
Konklusion: Første udgave af Det Danske Talentudviklingsmiljø-Spørgeskema (DTS) er et skridt på vejen mod et redskab til at evaluere kvaliteten af et talentmiljø og tilvejebringe vigtige anbefalinger til forskning og praksis. Testningen er foregået ved en lille stikprøve, hvorfor fremtidige studier bør undersøge DTS ved en større stikprøve, og undersøge for discriminant validitet samt for forskelle på tværs af idrætsgrene.
... To discover relevant life episodes, the interviewer applied a timeline as an elicitation technique to facilitate and structure the conversations. Inspired by Storm et al. (2012), and as exemplified in Figure 1, a timeline representing each participant's time in children, junior, and senior hockey was roughly sketched. Preparing these timelines by searching the internet (e.g., www.eliteprospects.com) ...
Despite an increasing interest in studying creativity in sport, previous research has primarily focused on in-game creative performance and employed research designs neglecting sport participants’ perspectives. Hence, this study explored professional athletes’ developmental experiences involving creativity. Semistructured retrospective interviews were conducted with eight ice hockey players performing in or retired from the National Hockey League, Kontinental Hockey League, or Swedish Hockey League. Players described 15 modalities of creative actions emerging when playing, practicing, and performing. Based on the players’ experiences, creativity led to augmented levels of enjoyment (i.e., elicited passion), development (i.e., enhanced potential), achievement (i.e., enriched in-game qualification), and fulfillment (i.e., extended career progression). Findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of creativity in sport and provide novel insights on the role of creativity in the development and maintenance of expertise in sport and the nature and role of deliberate play and deliberate practice in developing creativity.
... reports regarding age of specialization. Specialization was defined as either exclusive engagement in one sport (33,56,66,68,69,75,76,87) or age of investment without exclusive specialization (85). As shown in Figure 3C, age of specialization was generally around 14 yr, with the exception of swimming and rhythmic gymnastics (∼10-11 yr). ...
We provide a scoping review of research on athlete development in girls' and women's sports. Our emphasis is on pathways to expertise in the context of deliberate practice theory and associated models, such as the Developmental Model of Sport Participation (DMSP). Despite rationale for sex and gender differences in sport development, there are relatively few studies where the developmental pathways of female elite athletes have been evaluated. We sought to map the scope of the literature on this population over the last 30 years, focusing on measures of practice types and amounts. Following an extensive search of the literature, 32 studies were identified that included all female participants or presented sex/gender disaggregated data. Retrospective methods were commonly used to quantify practice, play and specialization. National-level athletes were the most represented, although there was considerable heterogeneity in sport and expertise-level, making general or comparative judgements challenging. We identified some groups that had accumulated high volumes of practice at a young age, particularly in soccer and gymnastics. Across sports and studies, early majority hours of engagement in the primary sport was the norm. Athletes deviated from predictions in the specialization pathway detailed in the DMSP, by continuing to participate in other sports throughout childhood and adolescence. In addition to highlighting the relative paucity of data pertaining to athlete development pathways in female athletes, we show that the data from these groups deviate from predictions detailed in current models of athlete development.
... Specifically, over the course of his/her career development, a football player must learn a broad range of motor skills combined with the socialpsychological skills necessary to interact effectively with teammates during the game. From our practical perspective, this process of learning technical motor skills and tactical interaction skills requires, on the one hand, the everyday repetition of similar exercises in the sense of early specialization with a high value of domain specificity and performance orientation (Coutinho Mesquita, & Fonseca, 2016;Storm, Henriksen, & Christensen, 2012), until the movement sequences are automated and incorporated, or as Bourdieu (1986) would say, embodied. Of essential practical importance to date are also low value of domain specific exercises such as other sports and other forms of football training contents (Sieghartsleitner, et al., 2018), which generate high levels of motivation in a football player and allow him/her to accumulate additional helpful motor patterns. ...
The main objective of this study was to determine whether sociocultural factors influence the career development of Slovenian national team football players. In this interview-based research, we consider Bourdieu’s theory of embodied and institutionalized cultural capital to find possible influencing sociocultural factors on the career development. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight Slovenian elite football players. The content of the interviews was organized based on the chronological events in each player’s life using seven open-ended questions. We analysed careers from the very beginning (initiation), across the development and mastery period to the career peak of the Slovenian football players in terms of the migration abroad. The results of this study support previous studies on the career development of football players. The work shows the important role of primary and secondary socialization processes, which exert a significant influence on career development among Slovenian football players.
... Some research included in this review suggests that the linearity of transitions described by the DMSP and LTAD might not reflect actual sport participation pathways of most participants. For example, several different trajectories were found to be associated with eventual professional rugby (Cupples et al., 2018) or golf (Hayman et al., 2011) contracts, Olympic appearances in track and field (Huxley et al., 2017), and other elite athletic achievements (Storm et al., 2012). Longitudinal studies spanning childhood to early adulthood have also demonstrated that several different trajectories of sport participation exist in the general population (Rodriguez and Audrain-McGovern, 2004;Findlay et al., 2009;Kwon et al., 2015;Howie et al., 2016). ...
Notwithstanding their wide-spread use, it is unclear what level of empirical evidence exists to support sport participation and physical activity-based models. Sport participation and physical activity-based models characterize different stages of sport involvement based on sport activities (organized and unorganized) individuals take part in throughout their lifespan. The objectives of this scoping review was to explore the nature of empirical support for tenets of sport participation and physical activity-based models describing the evolution of an individuals' sport participation. Seventeen different sport participation models were identified through an iterative literature review, using a snowball search strategy and expert (n = 8) consultation. Of the identified models, three described the evolution of an individual's sport participation based on their participation in different activities at various stages of sport involvement and were retained for the review. A second literature review identified peer-reviewed publications supporting at least one tenet of these three models. Many tenets of retained models received some empirical support from some of the 38 publications identified, but some tenets were not tested. Most of the evidence supporting tenets originated from studies among elite-level athletes. Whereas some evidence exists to support current sport participation and physical activity models, more research is warranted, particularly among the general population of non-elite athletes, for the models to be used in full confidence to guide sport policies, programs, and practices.
... The approach likewise highlights the inadequacy of seeing diversification versus early specialisation as dichotomous instead of focusing on unique trajectories embedded in a cultural context. In their in-depth study of specialisation pathways of Danish elite athletes, Storm, Henriksen, and Krogh (2012) showed a more nuanced picture of athlete's specialisation pathways. While some athletes followed the pathway of early specialisation, others preferred to follow the route of playful training. ...
Objectives
To determine the 4-week prevalence of pain medication use in youth athletes, the type of medication used, the reasons for use and from where the athletes obtained the medication.
Methods
466 handball players (aged 14-18) were surveyed about their pain medication use within the preceding 4 weeks. The questionnaire consisted of 3 parts; type of pain medication used (if any; non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), acetaminophen/paracetamol, and acetylsalicylic acid (ASA)), the reasons for use, and from where it was obtained.
Results
190 players (41% [95% CI 36%-45%]) reported pain medication use within the last 4 weeks. Paracetamol was the most reported type (n=157, 83% [95% CI 77%-88%]), followed by NSAIDs (n=98, 52% [95% CI 44%-59%]); 67 reported ‘injury-related reasons’ for their use, and most participants reported to obtain the pain medication via ‘From home or bought over-the-counter (OTC)’ (n=167, 88% [95% CI 82%-92%]).
Conclusions
Pain medication use in youth handball players is common, particularly among female players, and a substantial proportion of the overall use is due to injury-related reasons. The vast majority of the players got their pain medication from home or purchased it OTC. Further research is needed to comprehend these patterns of use, including the long-term use.
Early specialisation is largely advised against, partly due to the postulated negative motivational implications. However, early specialisation is commonly considered necessary for high-level performance in aesthetic activities, such as gymnastics and dance. The present study, therefore, explores the relationship between motivation and early specialisation in a sample of Swedish aesthetic performers, from a self-determination theory perspective. The aims of this study were twofold: (1) to identify whether early specialisation is associated with motivation (autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and dropout intentions) within a sample of aesthetic performers, and (2) to investigate if such relationships are moderated by perceptions of parental influence. Two hundred and ninety high-level aesthetic performers (M = 15.88 years old, SD = 2.34; 83% female) were recruited from Swedish clubs and schools to complete a questionnaire pack. The questionnaire pack included questions concerning demographic information, specialisation history, motivation, dropout intentions, and perceptions of parental influence. The results of our analyses do not support the claims that early specialisation is associated with negative motivational implications. In fact, the results show that those who reported a higher degree of specialisation ≤ 12 years old reported less controlled motivation than those who reported a lesser degree of early specialisation. Additionally, perceptions of parental influence were not found to moderate the relationship between early specialisation and motivation. These results are discussed in relation to the growing critique regarding the conceptualisation and measurement of early specialisation in sport literature.
There is continuing discussion in talent research on the best approach to developing sporting expertise through learning activities during early sport participation. Among other concepts, the specialized sampling model describes a pathway between early specialization and early sampling and yields promising results in Swiss football. As successful constellations of early sport participation might be affected by sport-specific constraints (e.g., age of peak performance, selection pressure, and physiological/psychological requirements), other popular game sports may show similar promising pathways. This study investigates whether ice hockey, another popular game sport in Switzerland, shows similar successful constellations of early sport participation. A sample of 98 former Swiss junior national team players born between 1984 and 1994 reported on early sport participation through a retrospective questionnaire. Using the person-oriented Linking of Clusters after removal of a Residue (LICUR) method, volumes of in-club practice, free play, and activities besides ice hockey until 12 years of age were analyzed, along with player’s age at initial club participation. The results indicate that ice hockey enthusiasts with the most free play and above-average in-club practice had a greater chance of reaching professional level compared to other groups. This implies that high domain specificity with varied sampling experiences is the most promising approach to developing sporting expertise in ice hockey. As similar results were previously found in Swiss football, comparable sport-specific constraints might indeed require similar constellations of learning activities during early sport participation. Therefore, in popular game sports in Switzerland, the specialized sampling model seems to be most promising.
Introduction: While practitioners and organizations advise against early specialization, the lack of a consistent and clear definition of early specialization reduces the impact of recommendations and policies in youth sport. An important first step in understanding the consequences of early specialization is establishing what early specialization is. Objectives: This PRISMA-guided systematic review aimed to determine the types, characteristics, and general content of early specialization papers within the literature, and examine how early specialization has been defined and measured in order to advance knowledge toward a clear and consistent definition of early specialization. Data sources: Four different electronic databases were searched (SPORTDiscus, Web of Science, Sports Medicine and Education Index, and Scopus). Both non data-driven and data-driven studies were included to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the literature. Eligibility Criteria: In order to be included in the review, the paper must: (a) Focus on specialization and explicitly use the term “specialization” (b) Focus on sport and athletes (c) Be papers from a peer-reviewed (d) Be in English. And finally, (e) be available in full text. Results: One thousand three hundred and seventy one articles were screened resulting in 129 articles included in the review after applying inclusion/exclusion criteria. Results indicated a clear discrepancy between key components of early specialization and the approaches used to classify early specializers. Conclusion: Future research should work toward developing a valid and reliable approach to classifying early specializers and establishing a consistent definition across studies.
The role of ecological constraints on the acquisition of sport expertise is gaining attention in sport science, although more research is needed. In this position paper we provide an ecological explanation for expertise acquisition, as alluding to qualitative data that support the idea that unconventional, even aversive, environmental constraints may play an important role in the development of world-class athletes. We exemplify this argument by profiling the role of unconventional practice environments using association football in Brazilian society as a task vehicle. Contrary to the traditional idea that only deliberate training and development programmes can lead to the evolution of expertise, we propose how expert performance might be gained through highly unstructured activities in Brazilian football, that represent a powerful and little understood implicit environmental constraint that can lead to expertise development in sport.© 2010 International Research Association for Talent Development and Excellence.
This paper chronicles the key developmental experiences and insights of 673 high performance Australian athletes (including 51 Olympians), across 34 sports. A customised survey was developed around Gagné's (2009) holistic model of talent development which enabled athletes to report in a contextually relevant way. Key thematic variables demonstrated that high performance athletes are characterised by diverse and high level sports participation prior to specialisation, a vast investment and commitment to practice, access to high quality coaching, substantial parental support, an early and enduring passion for sport, and resilience to overcome and bounce back from any obstacles. These factors are contrasted at each of the junior and senior competition development milestones, with theoretical and practical implications specific to athlete and national talent identification system development discussed. © 2010 international research association for talent development and excellence.
In this paper, we highlight key concepts from dynamical systems theory and complexity sciences to exemplify constraints on talent development in a sample of elite cricketers. Eleven international fast bowlers who cumulatively had taken more than 2,400 test wickets in over 600 international test matches were interviewed using an in-depth, open-ended, and semi-structured approach. Qualitative data were analysed to identify key components in fast bowling expertise development. Results revealed that, contrary to traditional perspectives, the athletes progressed through unique, nonlinear trajectories of development, which appears to be a commonality in the experts' developmental pathways. During development, individual experts encountered unique constraints on the acquisition of expertise in cricket fast bowling, resulting in unique performance adaptations. Specifically, data illustrated experts' ability to continually adapt behaviours under multifaceted ecological constraints.
The holistic ecological approach to talent development in sport highlights the central role of the overall environment as it affects a prospective elite athlete. This paper examines a flat-water kayak environment in Norway with a history of successfully producing top-level senior athletes from among its juniors. Principal methods of data collection include interviews, participant observations of daily life in the environment and analysis of documents. The environment was centered around the relationship between prospects and a community of elite athletes, officially organized as a school team but helping the athletes to focus on their sport goals, teaching the athletes to be autonomous and responsible for their own training, and perceived as very integrated due to a strong and cohesive organizational culture. We argue that the holistic ecological approach opens new venues in talent development research and holds the potential to change how sport psychology practitioners work with prospective elite athletes. The world of elite sport presents increasing physical and mental challenges to athletes while making ever greater financial demands on sporting organizations. Sport systems capable of developing athletes to the highest international levels are likely to receive financial rewards and recognition. For these reasons, talent detection and development have become central challenges to all sport systems. Applied sport psychology contributes to helping young talented athletes realize their potentials, and successful talent development alongside elite performance has been linked to psychological concepts such as motivation (e.g., Ryan & Deci,
This article presents a case study concerning biographical learning as health promotion among 16–18-year-old school girls in a Danish upper-secondary school. The case study shows a conflict in the students' perception of the learning in traditional physical education (PE) compared to a four-week pilot project employing dialogue groups as a didactic method in PE, which focused on the actual telling and listening to stories about sport and physical activity. The discussion of the results has its starting point in the concept of biographicity as the raw material of a learning process. By exploring the narrative structure of biographical learning, the article develops pedagogical considerations and discussions surrounding the case study, especially concerning biographical learning as an evident educational framework, in which the student has the opportunity to ‘stop, think and tell’ about what matters to him or her as a physical active person and a ‘healthy citizen’.
The theoretical framework presented in this article explains expert performance as the end result of individuals' prolonged efforts to improve performance while negotiating motivational and external constraints. In most domains of expertise, individuals begin in their childhood a regimen of effortful activities (deliberate practice) designed to optimize improvement. Individual differences, even among elite performers, are closely related to assessed amounts of deliberate practice. Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of 10 years. Analysis of expert performance provides unique evidence on the potential and limits of extreme environmental adaptation and learning.
Intrinsic and extrinsic types of motivation have been widely studied, and the distinction between them has shed important light on both developmental and educational practices. In this review we revisit the classic definitions of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in light of contemporary research and theory. Intrinsic motivation remains an important construct, reflecting the natural human propensity to learn and assimilate. However, extrinsic motivation is argued to vary considerably in its relative autonomy and thus can either reflect external control or true self-regulation. The relations of both classes of motives to basic human needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness are discussed.
The concept of organizational culture has received increasing attention in recent years both from academics and practitioners. This article presents the author's view of how culture should be defined and analyzed if it is to be of use in the field of organizational psychology. Other concepts are reviewed, a brief history is provided, and case materials are presented to illustrate how to analyze culture and how to think about culture change.