Scott Pierce

Definition and model of life skills transfer

ABSTRACT 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.

Strategies for coaching for life skills transfer

ABSTRACT For athletes, life skills transfer represents the vital ongoing process in their personal development whereby they internalize the skills they have learned in sport and apply them to multiple life domains. The purpose of this article is to offer coaches practical strategies that they can integrate into their coaching to explicitly promote life skills transfer beyond sport. Seven broad strategies, emanating from a synthesis of current literature, are presented alongside specific activities for coaches to help their athletes transfer life skills from sport to other life domains.

Understanding the process of psychological development in youth athletes attending an intensive wrestling camp

Abstract 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.

Teacher-Coaches’ Perceptions of Life Skills Transfer from High School Sport to the Classroom

Positive youth development is one of the primary goals of high school sport participation, yet the process of how youth transfer life skills from sport to other life domains is in need of greater examination. To offer a unique perspective, the purpose of the study explored teacher-coaches’ perceptions of the process of life skills transfer for student-athletes from high school sport to the classroom. Using a constructivist approach, 12 teacher-coaches (9 male, 3 female) with an average of 13 years (SD = 5.7) experience as a teacher-coach completed in-person, semistructured interviews. Using model for life skills transfer as a guiding framework, the theoretical thematic analysis revealed specific student-athlete characteristics (e.g., internal assets, external assets), high school sport factors (e.g., inherent demands, coaching characteristics), and high school classroom factors (e.g., classroom contextual factors, student-athlete psychological processes) that helped or hindered the process of life skills transfer. The critical influences of individual awareness and agency and of congruence between contexts highlighted the value of understanding life skills transfer through a developmental systems lens. Results are discussed with specific recommendations for researchers and practitioners related to understanding life skills transfer. Lay Summary: Positive youth development is a primary goal of high school sport participation, yet researchers can do more to understand the developmental outcomes from high school sport. In this study, teacher-coaches identified specific factors that can help and hinder student-athletes’ ability and likelihood of transferring life skills from high school sport to the classroom.

Tall poppy syndrome: Perceptions and experiences of elite New Zealand athletes

The tall poppy syndrome (TPS) is a culturally specific term defined as the “habit of denigrating or ‘cutting down’ those who are successful or who are high achievers”. The purpose of this study was to understand TPS from the perspective of elite New Zealand athletes. Specifically, this study sought to gain elite athletes’ perceptions of whether TPS exists and how it influences New Zealand sporting culture, their personal experiences of being a target of TPS, and how they personally responded to being a target of TPS. Nine current and 11 former New Zealand athletes were interviewed who had competed at Olympic, Commonwealth, or World Championship events. Athletes suggested that TPS was infused throughout society and influenced how the public celebrated winners and viewed success. Athletes believed they had been targets of TPS and viewed it both a positive and negative influence on athlete development. TPS-related criticisms were seen as providing motivation for hard work by some athletes, while others identified the successful use of self-regulation skills and coping strategies to respond to TPS criticisms. How an athlete responded to TPS-related criticisms appeared to be more important than the actual experience of being a tall poppy target. Practical implications and recommendations are presented to highlight the need to better understand socio-cultural influences on athletic talent and career development and to prepare for related challenges.

Understanding psychological changes in adolescent wrestlers participating in an intensive training camp: A mixed-methods investigation

Research has indicated that adversity created in training environments can develop mental toughness in adolescent athletes (Bell, Hardy, & Beattie, 2013; Connaughton, Hanton, & Jones, 2010; Gucciardi, Gordon, & Dimmock, 2008). However, few studies (Bell et al., 2013) have explored this development prospectively. Employing a pragmatic, longitudinal, mixed methods design, this study assessed 70 adolescent wrestlers participating in an established intensive wrestling camp that systematically employed adversity. The Trait Sport Confidence Inventory, the State Hope Scale, and the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28 were administered at the outset, conclusion, and nine-months-following the camp. A repeated measures MANOVA with post-hoc measures showed increases in seven variables, maintained at the nine-month follow-up, with the strongest partial effect sizes in hope (η = .242), sport confidence (η = .151), and coping with adversity (η = .142). Interviews with eight participants, conducted throughout the camp, one-week post-camp, and nine-months post-camp, yielded five high-order themes: enhanced confidence, work ethic, development of empowering attributes (e.g., responsibility, internal control), enhanced thought processes (e.g., self-awareness), and enhanced interpersonal skills. Results suggest that this highly-structured adverse training environment has the ability to develop a range of skills and dispositions related to mental toughness, and that some of these factors may transfer to other life contexts.

Choking in Sport: ACT on It!

The purpose of this article is to describe the phenomenon of choking in sport, and suggest a process approach to managing competitive pressure and choking (based on the sport, cognitive, and clinical psychology literature). Specific suggestions are provided for athletes to use before, during, and after competition. Athletes are encouraged to accept and acknowledge pressure and the feelings associated with choking, as opposed to attempting to avoid or get rid of these feelings. The strategy for athletes to use during competition is to ACT on it, or to follow the steps of Accept, Center, and Trust.