Developmental sport psychology

For youth sport people generally believe that sports help children develop self-confidence, discipline, teamwork skills, resiliency, moral thinking, and other individual strengths. Sometimes, the darker side of youth sports is apparent: young athletes might develop aggressive behavior and the need to dominate their opponents on and off the field.

Research has been conducted with hundreds of thousands of children who participate in sports. Generally, these studies show that children who participate in sports during middle and high school do better academically and are offered greater job prospects than children who do not participate in sports.

Three participation frameworks have been suggested (Miller & Kerr, 2002; Collins, Bailey, Ford, MacNamara, Toms, & Pearce, 2011):

• Elite referenced excellence takes the form of high-level athletic performance, whereby success is measured against others. The ultimate goal is winning at the highest level possible.
• Personal referenced excellence reflects participation and personal performance goals, whereby success is more personally referenced.  Achievement is perceived by accepting developmentally appropriate challenges as well as the acquisition of those personal skills and characteristics which contribute to lifelong health and well-being.
• Participation for personal wellbeing appears when participating in physical activity for other reasons than direct personal progression. These needs may include social motives (making/keeping friends), identity (being a member of specific activity group or community), and the maintenance of self-esteem (aesthetic body shape, fitness).

Models of participation

The traditional model of development in sport adopted a pyradimidal representation with a broad base of participation for developing foundation skills and increasingly higher levels of athletic performance, engaged in by fewer and fewer people (Tinning, Kirk, & Evans, 1993).

Even when popular by policy makers, this model has three weaknesses:

1. Prediction weakness. Pyramid model suggest that a gradual progression from one level to the next is a sign of an emergent ability, while, in most cases, this is not accurate. Talent spotting during childhood is not valid (Abbott, Collins, Martindale, & Sowerby, 2002).
2. Participation opportunity weakness. Pyramid models assume that selection for higher levels are based on excellenceality, participation is determined by various psychosocial and environmental factors (family demographics, opportunities to participate, availability and quality of coaching and facilities, even chance and random variables (Bailey, 2007).
3. Potential detection weakness. Pyramid models assume that current performance in a sports domain represents a participant’s ability. However, there are serious reasons to doubt in the validity of talent assessment methods (Burwitz, Moore, & Wilkinson 1994).

Developmental Model of Sport Participation

As a more realistic alternative to the traditional model, Canadian researcher Jean Côté and his colleagues have identified three stages of development (Beamer, Côté and Ericsson, 1999; Côté, 1999; Côté & Fraser-Thomas, 2007) and suggested this path to be an adaptive and beneficial model to either elite performance or life-long participation in physical activity:

1. The sampling phase (6–12 years): Children are provided with an opportunity to sample a range of sports, whereby they develop a foundation of basic movement skills and experience sport as a source of fun and excitement.
2. The specialising phase (13–15 years): Children begin to focus on a smaller number of sports and, while fun and enjoyment are still critical features to consider, sport-specific specialization starts.
3. The investment phase (16+ years): The young athlete becomes committed to high performance goals in a specific sport whereby the strategic, competitive and skill development elements of sport are in focus.

Importantly, development from the sampling phase can take one of three forms:

• Children can become involved more seriously in one or two sports in the specializing phase;
• Children can choose to stay involved in sport as a recreational activity;
• Children can op out of sport.

Development from the specializing phase can take one of three forms while aiming for a high level in one sport:

• Recreation;
• Drop out;
• Rrogress to the investment phase.

Young athletes who have reached the investment phase can:

• further progress to higher levels of performance;
• move to recreational sport;
• drop out.

Côté and his colleagues have also introduced an important distinction between two essential activity forms during an adequate development in sport:

• Deliberate practice. It has been shown that that the most effective learning occurs through participation which requires serious effort, is not inherently enjoyable and is specifically designed to improve performance (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993). Ericsson and his colleagues demonstrated expert level performance is the result of extensive deliberate practice (for at least 10 years ot 10 000 hours).
• Deliberate play. aland colleagues, however, found that during early development all kinds of sporting physical activities that are intrinsically motivating, provide immediate gratification and are specifically designed to maximise enjoyment are also of critical importance. Deliberate play involves a modifications of standard rules and flexible environments, requires minimal equipment, and allows to experiment with different movements and tactics (e.g. ball games on the street).

The adaptive and gradual development according to the developmental model intdocuded by Côté and colleagues is presented in the Figure above.

References:

Abbott, A., Collins, D., Martindale, R., & Sowerby, K. (2002). Talent identification and development: an academic review: a report for sportscotland by the University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh: sportscotland.

Bailey, R. (2007). Talent development and the luck problem. Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, 1, 367–77.

Beamer, M., Côté, J., & Ericsson, K.A. (1999). A comparison between international and provincial level gymnasts in their pursuit of sport expertise, Proceedings of the 10^th European Congress of Sport Psyc hology, Prague, Czech Republic.

Burwitz, L., Moore, P.M., & Wilkinson, D.M. (1994). Future directions for performance-related sports science research: an interdisciplinary approach. Journal of Sport Sciences, 12, 93–109.

Côté, J. (1999). The influence of the family in the development of talent in sport. The Sport Psychologist, 13, 395–417.

Côté, J. & Fraser-Thomas, J. (2007). Youth involvement in Sport. In Crocker, P. (Ed.), Introduction to Sport Psychology: A Canadian Perspective. Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Collins, D., Bailey, R., Ford, P. A., MacNamara, Á., Toms, M., & Pearce, G. (2011). Three Worlds: new directions in participant development in sport and physical activity. Sport, Education and Society, 17, 225-243.

Ericsson, K.A., Krampe, R.T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The Role of Deliberate Practice in

the Acquisition of Expert Performance. Psychological Review, 100, 363–406.

Miller, P. and Kerr, G. (2002) The athletic, academic and social experiences of intercollegiate student-athletes. Journal of Sport Behavior , 25, 346–368.

Tinning, R., Kirk, D., & Evans, J. (1993). Learning to Teach Physical Education. Sydney: Prentice-Hall.