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A grounded theory of personal development in high-performance sport environments
... However, solely focusing on athletes' outcomes may not sufficiently contribute to personal development as high-performance athletes need support and strategies to cope with challenges, adversities, and transitions (Hauser et al., 2022). Jørgensen et al. (2024) proposed that personal development can also be thought of as a continual and individualized process whereby athletes strive to improve in their sport as well as other life contexts. Their grounded theory presented three postulations on how to promote the athlete personal development process: (a) strategies, (b) situations, and (c) social support. ...
... We adopted a form of co-design within a four-phase program of research. Phase 1 involved constructing a grounded theory of personal development (Jørgensen et al., 2024) that was used as a theoretical framework for the intervention. Phase 2 involved the initial creation of the content and components of the intervention and was guided by a logic model and a checklist of intervention components. ...
... The AHEAD intervention was developed through four phases (see Figure 1). Phase 1 (November 2021-November 2022) involved constructing a grounded theory of personal development (Jørgensen et al., 2024) that was used as a theoretical framework for the intervention. The grounded theory study was based on data collected from a different sample than those included in the current study. ...
... Despite growing recognition of the importance of personal development, its direct impact on athletic performance remains underexplored, particularly in sports that demand both psychological resilience and physical endurance. Research suggests that structured sports environments can foster both personal development and athletic success (Jørgensen et al., 2024), with athletes demonstrating enhanced stress management, motivation (Antonio, 2023), and resilience (Bates et al., 2021;Lyu et al., 2022). However, gaps persist in understanding the direct impact of specific life skills such as goal-setting, social skills, and communication on performance outcomes (Adan, 2021;Bedir et al., 2023), directly influence performance outcomes. ...
... This suggests that current sports environments may inadequately nurture the full spectrum of life skills. These finding echoes previous studies that highlight gaps in life skills integration within sports training, often attributed to a lack of structured programs and insufficient knowledge among stakeholders (Gledhill & Harwood, 2017;Jørgensen et al., 2024). Also, the findings showed that majority of players have only fair performance. ...
Introduction: Personal development goes beyond physical training and technical skills. However, the impact of life skills on athletic performance remains underexplored, indicating a need to examine how personal development contribute to athlete’s success. Objective: This study examined the relationship between personal development, specifically life skills, and performance and the key predictors of performance among varsity basketball players at Mindanao State University (MSU), Philippines. Methodology: A quantitative correlational design was employed, involving 48 varsity players. Performance data were collected through notational analysis, while personal development was assessed using a standardized life skills questionnaire covering teamwork, goal-setting, social skills, problem-solving, emotional skills, leadership, time management, and communication. Pearson's correlation and multiple regression analyses were applied. Results: The findings revealed that the players exhibited moderate personal development overall and majority have fair performance. A statistically significant positive correlation (r = 0.967, p < 0.05) was identified between personal development and performance, with teamwork, emotional skills, leadership, and time management emerging as significant predictors of performance. Discussion: This highlights the importance of integrating structured life skills training into sports programs to foster well-rounded players. Such training not only enhances performance but also equips players with transferable skills for life beyond sports. Conclusions: Current sports environments lack full optimization of life skills, physical and technical skills, thereby calls a need for intervention. Future research should explore similar relationships across diverse sports and cultural contexts to generalize and expand these findings.
... The attendance at a more institutionalized sport not only affects the sporting or family environment, but also has consequences on the behaviors that children develop in their daily dynamics, transferring improvements on their personal or academic level, among others [39]. However, in this case, no significant differences are seen, so the behavior modification is similar whether you practice federated sports or not. ...
... Attendance at a more institutionalized sport not only affects the sporting or family environment, but also has consequences on the behaviors that children develop in their daily dynamics, transferring improvements on their personal or academic level, among others [39]. However, in this case, no significant differences are seen, so the behavior modification is similar whether federated sports are practiced or not. ...
Family time must be combined with the personal time of each of its members, with special importance regarding children due to the need for attention and monitoring by parents of their performance. Within the leisure of minors in the home, physical activity and sports are the most in-demand typologies, thus some of them participate in federated clubs, attending a more institutionalized or professional sport, while others develop in an environment based on entertainment. In this way, depending on the demand for these activities, it leads to a series of different consequences in the family environment. The main objective of this study is to establish whether or not children’s attendance at federated sports affects family dynamics. A total of 224 Spanish families with children from 6 to 18 years of age who practice sport activities participated and completed a questionnaire with 36 items about the family’s involvement in children’s sports. The results show that parents with children participating in federated sports have a more positive perception of their children’s sports practices; they provide greater support to their children regarding their performance and see this activity as an excellent opportunity for education in values. However, they do identify it as an obstacle to the development of family leisure practices, resulting in an element that conditions family reconciliation. In this way, there is a need to establish alliances between families and sports professionals, providing family participation bodies in sports clubs and providing a better conciliation time to accommodate family time.
The advent of the Internet + era has led to a significant increase in the prevalence of online instruction within higher education institutions. This underscores the critical importance of investigating students’ contentment with virtual learning experiences. This paper employs a qualitative research methodology based on grounded theory, utilizing 215 survey questionnaires completed by undergraduate students at Shanghai Dianji University. The study analyses the satisfaction of undergraduates with online teaching through open, spindle, and selective decoding and presents corresponding countermeasures and suggestions.
This study employed a correlational research method to examine the relationship between coaches’ self-efficacy – specifically in terms of emotion, optimism, work satisfaction and self-confidence -and athletes’ self-efficacy, which includes personality self- efficacy, sports discipline, psychological self-efficacy and professional thought efficacy. A purposive sampling technique was used to specifically select 10 badminton coaches. Meanwhile, stratified sampling was employed to proportionately distribute the 300 athletes from five universities, ensuring representation from different subgroups. This study found no significant correlation between coaches’ self-efficacy and athletes’ self-efficacy as indicated by the p values greatre than the .05 level of significance set in the study. Despite the Spearman rho coefficients ranging from moderate to high, these results were not statistically significant, these findings suggest that while there may be observable trends the relationship between coaches and athletes’ self-efficacy is not conclusively supported by the data.
The Holistic-Ecological Approach (HEA) was introduced in 2010, and it is now important to provide a critical review after a decade of research elaborating on the framework. The purpose of this study was to critically assess the methodological and theoretical trends in research using the HEA in the study of athletic talent development environments (ATDE). We used a qualitative meta- study to review twelve studies published from 2010 to the first quarter of 2021. Our meta-theory analysis found that future studies should consider the use of Bronfenbrenner’s work on development and address previous critiques on its use since it can limit the potential of the HEA re-search. In the meta-methods, we found that all studies used multiple and varied data collection strategies (e.g., interviews, observations, organisational documents). We also found a high degree of transparency and rigour exemplified by using multiple validity strategies. Method weaknesses were an underrepresentation of neutral or negative cases. The meta-data analysis showed that most ATDEs were classified as successful or unsuccessful ahead of data collection, suggesting potential confirmation bias. We also found that all ATDEs had competing findings, which suggests a need for exploring negative or ambiguous findings. Future research could benefit from clarifying the use of underlying theoretical assumptions; contrasting findings with neutral cases, outliers, and negative cases to clarify the definition of successful ATDEs; and expanding on the methodological approach.
Introduction
Researchers have increasingly focused on the mental health of elite athletes. However, there remains a paucity of research on the mental health of elite Canadian athletes, and the prevalence of mental disorders among this population is unknown.
Purpose
This study evaluated the prevalence of symptoms of mental health disorders, specifically depression, anxiety, and eating disorders (EDs), among elite Canadian athletes, and identified the relationship between components of the stress process model (stress, social support, coping, and self-esteem) and athletes' symptoms of mental disorders.
Methods
Canadian national team athletes who were training for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games completed a survey in December 2019. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations.
Results
Canadian athletes (N = 186) were included in the analytic sample. Based on the descriptive results, 41.4% of athletes met the cut-off criteria for one or more mental disorders. Specifically, 31.7% of athletes reported symptoms of depression, 18.8% reported symptoms of moderate (12.9%) to severe (5.9%) general anxiety, and 8.6% reported scores indicating high risk of an ED. Stress was a statistically significant correlate of depression, anxiety, and EDs. Training load was a statistically significant correlate of depression and anxiety, but not of EDs. Depression, anxiety, and EDs were significantly correlated.
Discussion
This study presents the first data on the prevalence of symptoms of mental disorders among elite Canadian athletes and demonstrates that they may be at an increased risk of experiencing a mental disorder compared to the general population.
The professionalization of soccer academies has intensified, with youth players exposed to demanding performance-focused environments in pursuit of a career in the professional game. Yet, academies are also under increasing pressure to show that they develop players who can function in life beyond soccer. Therefore, this study explored the retrospective views of 13 ex-elite U.K. youth academy soccer players on whether their time within the academy provided developmental experiences that prepared them for life beyond soccer. We interviewed seven players who successfully progressed into professional contracts and six who did not. Players were recruited from two different academies to explore the developmental outcomes they associated with academy involvement and to unpick how those outcomes were achieved. Our findings showed that, promisingly, time in the academy provided both contracted and non-contracted players with transferable life skills and opened educational and vocational doors—resulting in the majority of players leaving the environment being “(more) ready” for life. However, these outcomes are not “automatic” and were highly dependent on the interaction between three developmental contextual themes; (a) what was demanded by the academy context, (b) what was encouraged within the academy context, and (c) the quality of interpersonal relationships. Beyond this, players’ attitudes, histories, and wider socio-contextual influences were important in shaping (future) outcomes. With an eye on providing worthwhile experiences for all youth athletes involved, these findings provide insight into how academy contexts can simultaneously promote performance alongside positive developmental outcomes.
Objective: The need to support the well-being of elite athletes in a holistic manner is becoming increasingly evident with the rise of reported mental health issues in this context. Surprisingly, mentoring as a support mechanism for athlete well-being has yet to be explored. The purpose of this exploratory study was to develop a contextualized perspective of the experience of mentoring within sport, and investigate whether athletes perceived benefits to their well-being as a consequence of engaging in mentoring.
Design and methodology: An interpretative phenomenological analysis was adopted (IPA; Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight mentors and three athlete-mentees, who had been mentored for at least 6 months.
Results: Data analysis of participant narratives were conceptualized into five high-order themes: (1) role; (2) attributes; (3) experience and training; (4) relationship structure; and (5) agenda. Higher-order themes were embedded into three superordinate themes: critical elements of mentoring, effective relationships, and perceived benefits to psychological well-being.
Conclusion: Identified themes paralleled the dimensions in Ryff’s (1989) model of psychological well-being (PWB). Collectively, these findings advance the limited literature on the experience of athlete mentoring and highlight it as a potential mechanism for the development of holistic athlete well-being.
Support providers may experience positive and negative outcomes associated with supporting others. However, there is a lack of research on support provision to elite athletes and the views of athletes' support providers. This study addressed this gap by exploring the experiences of providing and receiving support between female Olympians and their main support providers. Five female Olympians and their main support providers participated in separate semistructured interviews. It appeared that support provision was personally and professionally rewarding, as well as challenging, for support providers, and athletes were generally satisfied with the support they received. Athletes appeared highly dependent on their support providers, but both athletes and support providers felt that high levels of support were necessary for athletic success. Further research is needed to understand how support providers are able to foster their own personally supportive relationships and whether high levels of interpersonal dependence are required to achieve athletic success.
Resilience research is plagued with conceptual inconsistencies, particularly when considered across different contexts, not least because of the diversity of adverse situations across these contexts. We conducted a systematic review to examine current conceptualisations of resilience across the contexts of work and competitive sports. Utilising a sample of 52 articles comprising both qualitative and quantitative studies, we comprehensively reviewed research on psychological resilience across these two parallel achievement contexts. Results suggested that a state-like conceptualisation of resilience involving processes of adaptation and growth from stressors appears most amenable to advance research going forward. Correspondingly, there was comprehensive evidence that fluctuations in specific psychological resources may influence resilience capacities to deal with stress. Thus, there may be reciprocal relationships between resilience and a number of psychological resources buffering a broad a spectrum of events varying from minor short-term, to moderate, to long-term adversities. Going forward, there is a need for more longitudinal studies to examine the dynamics of state-like conceptualisations of resilience and further examine such reciprocal relationships with various psychological resources.
Research points to the notion that athletes have the potential to benefit from difficulty. This phenomenon—otherwise known as growth following adversity—has attracted increasing attention from sport psychology scholars. In this paper, we systematically review and synthesize the findings of studies in this area to better understand: (a) how growth has been conceptualized in competitive sport, (b) the theory underpinning the study of growth in sport performers, (c) the nature of research conducted in this area, and (d) the adversity- and growth-related experiences of competitive athletes. Following the application of inclusion criteria and methodological quality assessment, 17 studies were deemed suitable for inclusion in the systematic review. The findings of these studies are reviewed and synthesized in relation to study characteristics (viz. growth terminology, theoretical underpinning, study design, participant details, and data analysis), quality appraisal, adversity-related experiences (viz. negative events and experiences, and response to negative events and experiences), and growth-related experiences (viz. mechanisms of growth and indicators of growth). To facilitate understanding of growth following adversity in competitive sport, we address the definitions and theories that have informed the body of research, discuss the associated findings related to the adversity- and growth-related experiences of competitive athletes, and outline avenues for future research. It is hoped that this review and synthesis will facilitate understanding and inform practice in this area.
The overall purpose of this study was to create a model of positive youth development (PYD) through sport grounded in the extant qualitative literature. More specifically, the first objective was to review and evaluate qualitative studies of PYD in sport. The second objective was to analyze and synthesize findings from these studies. Following record identification and screening, 63 articles were retained for analysis. Meta-method analysis revealed strengths of studies were the use of multiple data collection and validity techniques, which produced high-quality data. Weaknesses were limited use of ‘named’ methodologies and inadequate reporting of sampling procedures. Philosophical perspectives were rarely reported, and theory was used sparingly. Results of an inductive meta-data analysis produced three categories: PYD climate (adult relationships, peer relationships, and parental involvement), life skills program focus (life skill building activities and transfer activities), and PYD outcomes (in personal, social, and physical domains). A model that distinguishes between implicit and explicit processes to PYD is presented.
The latest research in talent development show that more
varied psychological and especially social and cultural circumstances
play an important role in talent development. This study assumes an ecological approach to explore which psychosocial skills are important in a youth soccer academy and how psychosocial skills are practiced in this particular environment. Method: The research takes the form of a case study. Data were collected from multiple perspectives (in-depth interviews with managers,coaches and players), from multiple situations (observation of training,competitions and meetings) and from the analysis of documents. Results:The findings reveal explicit (being practiced and talked about) and implicit(indirectly practiced and talked about) psychosocial skills in the youth soccer academy and a differentiation between internal and interpersonal psychosocialskills. Conclusions: Important explicit psychosocial skills are motivation, selfawareness and the ability to work hard. However, even more important for the young soccer players dealing with the transition to professional soccer seem to be implicit psychosocial skills such as managing performance and process outcomes (internal) and the ability to utilize team skills and general social skills (interpersonal). Despite the fact that the environment expects theyoung players to display these skills, they are only indirectly practiced. This study demonstrates the interweaving of psychosocial skills and practice in the talent development environment, and thus underlines the social constructionof psychosocial skills in elite sport.
In this study we examined whether and how youth learned life skills through their involvement on a high school soccer team. We collected data from fieldwork and interviews with 12 male student-athletes and the head coach from one team. Results showed that the coach's philosophy involved building relationships and involving student-athletes in decision making. Issues relating to three life skills (initiative, respect, and teamwork/leadership) were identified. Although we observed little direct teaching of these life skills, we saw that players generally were producers of their own experiences that supported the development of these skills. /// Les auteurs ont cherché à savoir si et comment les jeunes acquièrent certaines compétences de la vie courante en étant membres d'une équipe de soccer au secondaire. Les chercheurs ont colligé des données sur le terrain et interviewé 12 élèves-athlètes de sexe masculin ainsi que l'entraîneur principal d'une équipe. Les résultats indiquent que l'entraîneur avait pour philosophie de favoriser l'établissement de relations et d'impliquer les élèves-athlètes dans les prises de décision. Des problèmes reliés à trois compétences de la vie courante (l'initiative, le respect et l'esprit d'équipe/le leadership) ont été identifiés. Bien que les auteurs aient observé que ces compétences sont peu enseignées comme telles, ils ont constaté que observé que ces compétences sont peu enseignées comme telles, ils ont constaté que les joueurs étaient les producteurs de leurs propres expériences, qui favorisaient effectivement le développement de ces compétences.
Favoured by ethnographers with some degree of closeness to the culture they wish to examine, the cultural participant as insider researcher has become relatively commonplace across the humanities. A large body of methodological literature now exists on this, highlighting the advantages and some of the dilemmas of conducting insider research. This literature is not exhaustive, as there remain elements of insider research still underdeveloped, such as how one goes about negotiating previously established friendships and intimate relationships in this context. Indeed, what are the benefits and dilemmas engendered by such negotiations? Drawing on existing scholarly accounts of field-based friendship and the author’s experiences of researching queer culture as an insider, this article addresses these questions in relation to the author’s field of inquiry and to social research paradigms more broadly. Subsequently, it argues that while being intimately inside one’s field does offer significant advantages, it also reshapes the researcher’s role in and experiences of her own culture and those within it.
Should qualitative researchers be members of the population they are studying, or should they not? Although this issue has been explored within the context of qualitative research, it has generally been reserved for discussions of observation, field research, and ethnography. The authors expand that discussion and explore membership roles by illustrating the insider status of one author and the outsider status of the other when conducting research with specific parent groups. The strengths and challenges of conducting qualitative research from each membership status are examined. Rather than consider this issue from a dichotomous perspective, the authors explore the notion of the space between that allows researchers to occupy the position of both insider and outsider rather than insider or outsider.
The transformation of talented youngsters into senior world-beaters is a topic of interest for practitioners and researchers alike. Unfortunately there is a dearth of research to guide the optimization of this process. Accordingly, this paper offers an overview of key themes apparent in the literature that have relevance to the effective development of talent. The five key generic features that emerge consistently include long-term aims and methods; wide ranging coherent messages and support; emphasis on appropriate development rather than early selection; individualized and ongoing development; and finally, integrated, holistic, and systematic development. In addition to the review, exemplars of current worldwide practice are used to further highlight both the need and direction for further research and more broad education of an effective talent development model.
This study was designed to examine psychological characteristics and their development in Olympic champions. Ten U.S. Olympic champions (winners of 32 Olympic medals) were interviewed, as were one of their coaches ( n = 10), and a parent, guardian, or significant other ( n = 10). A battery of psychological inventories was also administered to the athletes. It was found that the athletes were characterized by: (a) the ability to cope with and control anxiety; (b) confidence; (c) mental toughness/resiliency; (d) sport intelligence; (e) the ability to focus and block out distractions; (f) competitiveness; (g) a hard-work ethic; (h) the ability to set and achieve goals; (i) coachability; (j) high levels of dispositional hope; (k) optimism; and (l) adaptive perfectionism. Results also revealed that a number of individuals and institutions influenced the athletes' psychological development including the community, family, the individual himself or herself, non-sport personnel, sport environment personnel, and the sport process. Coach and family influences were particularly important. Ways in which these sources influenced the athletes were both direct, like teaching or emphasizing certain psychological lessons, and indirect, involving modeling or unintentionally creating certain psychological environments. Psychological characteristic findings verified current sport psychological research on psychological characteristics associated with peak performance (Williams & Krane, 2001). They also suggest that adaptive perfectionism, dispositional hope, and high levels of optimism are new variables to consider. Results are also discussed relative to Bloom's (1985), Côtè's (1999) and Csikzentmihalyi, Rathunde, Whalen, and Wong's (1993) talent development research. Practical implications focus on implementing parenting and coaching practices related to the development of psychological characteristics associated with athletic success.
This article aims to show how reflexivity helps create transparency and dialogue that is required for forming and sustaining ethical research relationships, especially when prior relationships with participants already exist. The article draws on literature relating to ethics and reflexivity and uses two stories, illustrated by conversations with research participants, to demonstrate how ethical issues emerge through conversation when planning research and how participants can use those conversations to inform later ethical decision-making practices. The article also presents literature, theories, and poetic representation that go some way toward explaining and describing the vulnerabilities experienced by researchers when using reflexivity. Reflexivity, although enabling the conduct of ethical relational research, also requires researchers to come from behind the protective barriers of objectivity and invite others to join with us in our learning about being a researcher as well as remaining human in our research relationships.
ABSTRACT—This article asserts that the theory of emerging adulthood is a useful way of conceptualizing the lives of people from their late teens to their mid- to late 20s in industrialized societies. The place of emerging adulthood within the adult life course is discussed. The weaknesses of previous terms for this age period are examined, and emerging adulthood is argued to be preferable as a new term for a new phenomenon. With respect to the question of whether emerging adulthood is experienced positively or negatively by most people, it is argued that it is positive for most people but entails developmental challenges that may be difficult and there is great heterogeneity, with some emerging adults experiencing serious problems. With respect to the question of whether or not emerging adulthood is good for society, it is argued that claims of the dangers of emerging adulthood are overblown, but emerging adulthood is probably a mixed blessing for society.
A substantial body of work on the concept of social support has resulted in many definitions, but none have been accepted as definitive. The lack of consensus about the definition of social support has resulted in a lack of consistency and comparability among studies. More important, the validity of any study attempting to measure or influence social support is undermined by the use of generic definitions, which lack contextual sensitivity. In this article concept analysis is used to evaluate definitions of social support to ascertain their utility for research. The authors argue that a contextualized approach to the definition of social support is necessary to improve clarity in research, and results in interventions or practices that are useful. They also assert that the development of a contextualized definition of social support requires qualitative methods to explore the meaning of social support with groups of people for whom intervention research is ultimately intended.
Based on the work of Martindale et al. (2005) and Henriksen et al. (2010a),
researchers have increasingly focused on environmental features influencing talent
development in sport from an integrated, holistic perspective. These contributions
led to a quickly evolving body of literature and a proliferation of findings related
to facilitative and debilitative environmental features. With a timely appraisal of
this work warranted, this review aims to coalesce salient results from talent
development environment research. For this purpose, a holistic perspective is
employed on (a) the environmental level, by considering the sport and non-sport
domain and by identifying functional and dysfunctional features, as well as on (b)
the outcome level, by considering wellbeing and personal development, alongside
athletic development, as important athlete-related outcomes. Following a
systematic search, 44 articles were identified and findings summarised by
conducting a directed content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). Several
functional and dysfunctional features were derived from the literature and grouped
into the following main categories within a preliminary conceptual framework:
Preconditions of the Sport Environment, Organisational Culture, Integration of
Efforts, and Holistic Quality Preparation. The framework’s contribution to a more
systemic and holistic approach to talent development is discussed and critical
future research directions are proposed.
Despite the pervasive belief that sport can serve as a vital context for positive youth development (PYD), the associated empirical evidence to support these claims is less compelling. To advance the field, the purpose of this scoping review was to better understand how sport-based PYD researchers conceptualize PYD, and both operationally define and measure PYD outcomes. A final sample of 78 non-experimental, quantitative research articles involving 90,665 youth (Mage = 14.16 years) met inclusion criteria. Results revealed a wide and inconsistent array of (a) conceptual models and definitions for PYD, (b) constructs used to operationalize PYD, and (c) measures used to assess these PYD constructs. Only 38 of the studies (48%) explicitly conceptualized PYD using a formal definition and/or framework and there were a total of 243 unique operational definitions to represent PYD through sport (assessed a total of 632 times). In light of these findings, we offer a set of recommendations with the intent to strengthen future quantitative, sport-based PYD research. We believe that adherence to these guidelines carries the potential to enhance future theoretical and practical contributions, and help to better understand sport as a vehicle for positive development for youth.
The purpose of this study was to examine former Brazilian high-performance volleyball athletes’ perspectives
on life skills learning and transfer through their experiences in sport. This qualitative study
involved a narrative approach through composite vignettes. The creation of the composite vignettes
included the most relevant life events and participants’ perspectives through their accounts of the
experience transformed in one unique voice. Participants were five former Brazilian high-performance
volleyball athletes. Data were collected through rappaport timeline and semi-structured interviews.
Findings showed athletes were able to learn and transfer life skills throughout their careers and later in
life through an implicit approach to life skills development and transfer. The trials and tribulations of
high-performance sport were, in these cases, used as life lessons that transformed into life skills used in
athletes’ lives beyond sport. Moving forward, more research is needed to understand the highperformance
sport’s role in life skills transfer and its implication for athletes’ development across sociocultural
contexts.
The acquisition of psychological skills and characteristics (PSCs) is an important aspect of career development in sport. PSCs may equip athletes with resources they need to navigate career transitions. Little attention has been paid to the development of PSCs in the careers of professional ice hockey players. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the development of PSCs among National Hockey League (NHL) players. Using interpretive description methodology, we conducted individual semi-structured interviews with six NHL players (4 current players, 2 retired players). Data were transcribed verbatim and subjected to a reflexive thematic analysis. Results were organized around three career stages (minor, junior, and professional hockey). In minor hockey, participants developed interpersonal (teamwork, leadership, accountability, and being a good teammate) and individual (work ethic, discipline, and commitment) psychological characteristics within a supportive social environment. During junior hockey, participants developed performance-oriented psychological characteristics (dealing with adversity, focus on the present, emotional regulation, having confidence in one’s abilities and a positive attitude) and psychological skills (reframing adversity as a challenge) arising from experiences of adversity and success. Finally, during professional hockey, they developed and refined performance-oriented psychological skills (visualization, self-talk, reflection, and thought-stopping) while also focusing on being a good teammate to promote their career longevity. These findings indicate there was a chronological pattern in the development of PSCs among the NHL players studied. A practical implication is that building foundational psychological characteristics may facilitate the later development of performance-oriented PSCs.
Research has identified psychological skills and characteristics (PSCs) perceived to facilitate talented youth athletes’ development. However, no systematic categorisation or synthesis of these PSCs exists to date. To provide such synthesis, this systematic review aims to: (i) identify PSCs perceived as facilitative of talented youth athletes’ development; (ii) group and label synonymous PSCs; and (iii) categorise PSCs based on definitions established in Dohme, Backhouse, Piggott, and Morgan (2017). PRISMA systematic review guidelines were employed and a comprehensive literature search of SPORTDiscus, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, and ERIC completed in November 2017. Twenty-five empirical studies published between 2002 and 2017 met the inclusion criteria. Through thematic analysis, 19 PSCs were identified as facilitative of youth athletes’ development. Eight PSCs were categorised as psychological skills (e.g., goal-setting, social support seeking, and self-talk) and eleven as psychological characteristics (e.g., self-confidence, focus, and motivation). The practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Recent development in the understanding of human motivation has highlighted the crucial and reciprocal role of motivation on cognitive processes. In elite sport settings, athletes are subject to external forces that do not necessarily correspond with their inherent drives. However, they seem to develop cognitive competencies to cope with external forces, when planning, monitoring, and reflecting on their high-level achievements. The current study aims to explore likely interactions between motivation and cognitive processes as athletes develop from novice to elite levels. Five female Olympic and World Championship medallists were interviewed. A thematic analysis revealed how motivation and self-regulation competencies interchangeably influenced athletes’ career trajectories asynchronously. Chronologically, four themes emerged: 1) Motivational shifts evoked planning and self-control competencies, 2) The external control constrained athletes’ self-regulation, 3) Self-control and reflection in extrinsically driven athletes, and 4) Elite athletes’ multidimensional motivation and self-regulation profile. Initially, intrinsic motivation prompted athletes’ participation, but the competitive nature of sport activities led to a shift toward more external forms of motivation. This motivational shift was accompanied by changes in self-regulation competencies, particularly planning and self-control, rather than self-reflection. Over time, athletes’ increased sport-specific self-confidence contributed to further refinement of self-regulation competencies and integrated motivational regulations. Rather than exploring motivation and cognitive competencies individually, current study findings highlight dynamic interactions between these concepts that influences athletes’ ongoing development to elite level performances.
The purposes of this study were to identify and explore (a) the life skills learning contexts experienced by Canadian junior national team biathletes and (b) the ways in which they learned life skills in these contexts. Nine members of the Canadian junior national biathlon team participated in individual semi-structured interviews. Results of thematic analysis revealed three life skills learning contexts: sport, school/work, and family. Participants reported learning life skills by using cognitive processes of observational learning and reflections on experiences. Some athletes reported that life skills learning occurred ‘automatically’ as a consequence of being involved in high level sport, which may suggest implicit cognitive learning. Practically, these findings suggest young high level athletes should be encouraged to engage in multiple contexts in order to experience opportunities to develop life skills, and learning certain cognitive strategies may facilitate the development of life skills across contexts.
This study explored UK female football players' perceptions of their talent development environments using the Talent Development Environment Questionnaire. Participants were 137 UK-based female football players (Mage = 16.06, SD = 1.90) from Football Association Girls' Centres of Excellence and Football Association Women's Super League Development Squads. Players had most positive perceptions of long-term development focus and support network, whilst the least positive perceptions were of communication and understanding the athlete. Sport psychologists could offer significant support in: (1) Planning for football-specific development and career progression; (2) communication with key social agents; and (3) holistic player development and wellbeing.
The 15-month ethnography reported here investigated the culturally and contextually relevant lifestyle concerns for which national-level youth cricketers seek support and the personal meanings ascribed to them. Players discussed lifestyle challenges and support, with five themes emerging: (a) players appreciating lifestyle support, (b) adapting to the new environment, (c) managing competing demands, (d) educational choices and professional contracts, and (e) identity negotiation in critical moments. The challenges impacted players' sense of self, well-being, and ultimately performance. The findings suggest lifestyle practitioners should support players through counseling approaches, strong player relationships, and environment immersion with a view to impacting performance. 2017
For a sport skill to be considered a life skill, it must be successfully transferred and applied beyond sport. Life skills transfer is an essential process, but it has yet to be fully delineated within the sport psychology literature. The purpose of the current paper is to present a definition and model of life skills transfer and outline future research needs. A critical review of the literature within sport psychology and other learning-based disciplines is offered to assess our current understanding of learning transfer. A definition and model of transfer are then presented, focusing on the athlete learner’s experience of life skills transfer. Within the model, we first examine how athletes bring personal assets and autobiographical experiences to sport. Second, we explore how sport is a learning environment with distinctive demands, programme designs, and coach characteristics and strategies. Third, we explain how transfer contexts provide environmental conditions, which, depending on how they are interpreted or experienced, can help or hinder the transfer of life skills. Ultimately, we postulate that an individual experiences life skills transfer as an ongoing process whereby he/she continually interacts and interprets his/her environments to produce positive or negative life skills transfer outcomes.
This study used a grounded theory methodology to understand if and how psychological development in youth athletes was facilitated by an ‘intensive’ summer wrestling camp experience. The theoretical sampling approach involved 10 athlete participants of the camp, nine parents of athletes, the director of the camp, and four camp staff members, who took part in a series of interviews before, during, and after the camp. Two researchers were also embedded in the camp and attended all sessions, took detailed notes, collected camp materials, and conducted observations. Following a grounded theory analysis approach, a model is presented that outlines how youth participants’ developed psychological qualities from the coach-created challenges and adversity that were systematically designed to facilitate sport performance enhancement and life skills. Variations emerged in psychological antecedents and characteristics, how the challenging wrestling camp environment was interpreted and experienced, and how learning was transferred to sport and life domains outside of the wrestling camp. This study provided insight into a unique youth sport context that was able to simultaneously develop psychological qualities to be used as sport performance enhancement and life skills.
Qualitative research is often associated with interpretivism, but alternatives do exist. Besides critical research and sometimes positivism, qualitative research in information systems can be performed following a paradigm of pragmatism. This paradigm is associated with action, intervention and constructive knowledge. This paper has picked out interpretivism and pragmatism as two possible and important research paradigms for qualitative research in information systems. It clarifies each paradigm in an ideal-typical fashion and then conducts a comparison revealing commonalities and differences. It is stated that a qualitative researcher must either adopt an interpretive stance aiming towards an understanding that is appreciated for being interesting; or a pragmatist stance aiming for constructive knowledge that is appreciated for being useful in action. The possibilities of combining pragmatism and interpretivism in qualitative research in information systems are analysed. A research case (conducted through action research (AR) and design research (DR)) that combines interpretivism and pragmatism is used as an illustration. It is stated in the paper that pragmatism has influenced IS research to a fairly large extent, albeit in a rather implicit way. The paradigmatic foundations are seldom known and explicated. This paper contributes to a further clarification of pragmatism as an explicit research paradigm for qualitative research in information systems. Pragmatism is considered an appropriate paradigm for AR and DR.
Psychological resilience is important in sport because athletes must utilise and optimise a range of mental qualities to withstand the pressures that they experience. In this article, we discuss psychological resilience in sport performers via a review of the stressors athletes encounter and the protective factors that help them withstand these demands. It is hoped that synthesising what is known in these areas will help researchers gain a deeper profundity of resilience in sport, and also provide a rigorous and robust foundation for the development of a sport-specific measure of resilience. With these points in mind, we divided the narrative into two main sections. In the first section, we review the different types of stressors encountered by sport performers under three main categories: competitive, organisational and personal. Based on our recent research examining psychological resilience in Olympics champions, in the second section we discuss the five main families of psychological factors (viz. positive personality, motivation, confidence, focus, perceived social support) that protect the best athletes from the potential negative effect of stressors. It is anticipated that this review will help sport psychology researchers examine the interplay between stressors and protective factors, which will, in turn, focus the analytical lens on the processes underlying psychological resilience in athletes.
The article starts with the observation that dunng the 1980s organizational culture has become a very popular topic within organization theory. The rapid expansion of this perspective, which received almost no attention until the end of the 1970s, is explained It is argued that although there are good theoretical, i e intra-scientific, reasons for the mterest in organizational cultures, these only explain to a limited degree the development of this theory. A multi-level analysis of the social forces involved in the diffusion process of culture theory is conducted. These forces are partly captured through a market metaphor in which scholars are seen as producers of theory, while practitioners, especially managers, are seen as buyers The demand for new ideas on effective management, the business situation dunng the recent decade as well as the development of late-capitalistic society to kulturelle freisetzung' (Ziehe), which lead to changed work morality and increased expenenced need for involvement and expressivity, are empha sized as factors producing a good soil for the development and expansion of the culture perspective on organizations.
The debate on insider/outsider positionality has raised issues about the methodological advantages and liabilities between the two, yet no clear account exists for what insider scholars can expect when they enter the field. First, I conceptualize how insider positionality can dually benefit and disadvantage the insider. Using a partial review of insider studies, including my study of my multigenerational Mexican American family, I also present a practical discussion on specific insider advantages and complications. In conclusion, I present a new approach to training novice insider scholars that will help them mediate between insider perspective and researcher position, an approach that promises greater rigor to insider research that will serve the goals of qualitative research for social justice in minority and indigenous communities.
ObjectivesResearch into the discovery and development of athletic talent has tended to focus on the individual athlete. This study assumes a holistic ecological approach; it focuses on the overall athletic talent development environment (ATDE), presents an analysis of one particular ATDE (the Danish national 49er sailing team) and examines key factors behind its success in creating top athletes. To guide the project, two working models were developed. The ATDE working model serves to describe the environment's components and structure. The environmental success factors (ESF) working model serves to structure factors contributing to the environment's success.MethodThe research takes the form of a case study. Data were collected from multiple perspectives (in-depth interviews with administrators, coaches and athletes), from multiple situations (observation of training, competitions and meetings) and from the analysis of documents.ResultsEmpirical versions of the ATDE and ESF models were developed of the investigated environment, which was characterized by a high degree of cohesion, with the relationship between current and prospective elite athletes at its core. A lack of resources was compensated for by a strong organizational culture, characterized by values of open co-operation, individual responsibility and a focus on performance process.ConclusionsThe research concluded that the holistic ecological approach constitutes an important supplement to the contemporary literature on athletic talent and career development, that further studies of specific environments are needed to establish the common features of successful ATDEs and that practitioners should look beyond the individual in their attempts to nurture sporting excellence.
Telling secrets, revealing lives: Relational ethics in research with intimate others
- Ellis
A personal assets approach to youth sport
- Côté
Developing talent while promoting positive youth development: A balancing act
- Fraser-Thomas
Learning life skills through challenging and negative experiences
- Newman
Beyond life-skills: Talented athletes, existential learning and (Un)learning the life of an athlete
- Ronkainen
A holistic ecological approach
- Henriksen
Henriksen, K., & Stambulova, N. (2017). A holistic ecological approach. In J. Baker, S. Cobley,
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Mission, Vision, & Values of Biathlon Canada
- Biathlon Canada
Biathlon Canada. (2022, November). Mission, Vision, & Values of Biathlon Canada.