Kate Hays

Sources and Types of Confidence Identified by World Class Sport Performers

This study identified the sources and types of confidence salient to 14 (7 male, 7 female) successful World Class athletes. Nine sources of confidence were identified: Preparation, performance accomplishments, coaching, innate factors, social support, experience, competitive advantage, self-awareness, and trust. A testament to the multi-dimensional nature of sport confidence, six types of sport confidence were also identified: skill execution, achievement, physical factors, psychological factors, superiority to opposition, and tactical awareness. Gender was related to both the sources of confidence and the subsequent types of confidence experienced by the athletes. For example, females placed more importance on good personal performances than males who derived confidence from winning. Results were discussed in the context of previous sport confidence literature and implications for sport psychology and coaching practices were drawn.

Stress in Elite Sports Coaching: Identifying Stressors

This paper presents the first in a series of studies exploring coaches’ experiences of stress within the unique culture of world class sport. The purpose of this study was to gain an in-depth account of the stressors encountered by elite coaches in the United Kingdom. Six male and six female coaches with international experience were interviewed. Transcribed interviews were inductively content analyzed by three independent researchers. Ten higher-order themes emerged, demonstrating that coaches experienced a wide range of stressors (e.g., conflict, pressure and expectation, athlete concerns, competition preparation, isolation). Conflict within the organization emerged as a key theme, indicating that communication skills might be important in helping coaches function effectively as part of a wider organizational team. Findings also highlight the importance of psychological skills training for coaches to help them cope with the diverse demands of world class coaching.

Stress and Coping: A Study of World Class Coaches

This study explored coaches’ responses to stress, the perceived effects of stress, and the coping strategies coaches employed. Transcribed interviews with 12 world class coaches, based in the UK, were inductively content analyzed. A range of themes emerged describing coaches’ responses to stressors and the effects of stress. Specifically, coaches discussed psychological reactions, and suggested that their negative responses to stress could be projected onto their athletes. While structuring and planning was reported as a coping strategy, coaches described a limited use of psychological skills and tended to avoid stressors that provoked strain responses in efforts to manage stress. Results suggest that coaches should be aware of how they respond to stressors and the influence their responses might have on their athletes. Sport psychologists should help coaches to identify and develop the psychological skills and strategies required to cope with the demands of world class coaching.

Delivery of Psychological Skills Training to Youngsters

The aim of the present study was to explore sport psychologists’ experiences of working with children and adolescents to understand how they have adapted both content and delivery of psychological skills training when consulting with young athletes. Interviews with 12 experienced sport psychology consultants from the United Kingdom were inductively content analyzed. Four main higher order themes relating to content and delivery emerged: consultancy skills, relating to youngsters, delivery medium, and maintaining engagement. The findings imply that psychologists experience challenges unique to youth populations but also have developed content and delivery strategies to overcome these.

The effect of manipulating training demands and consequences on experiences of pressure in elite netball

Testing the efficacy of a pressure training framework (Stoker, Lindsay, Butt, Bawden, & Maynard, 2016), the present study investigated whether manipulating training demands and consequences altered experiences of pressure. Elite Netballers (Mage = 26.14 years) performed a Netball exercise in a randomized, within-subject design with four conditions: a control, consequences, demands, and demands plus consequences condition. Compared with the control, self-reported pressure was significantly higher in the consequences and demands plus consequences condition but not in the demands condition. The findings provide mixed support for manipulating demands and strong support for manipulating consequences as a means for producing pressure.