ICCE research presentation....minus the awkward accent!!
/Sadly, I couldn’t be in person at this year’s ICCE Coaching Conference in Japan; my wonderful, always-supportive wife had a rollerskating accident a few weeks ago and now my turn to be as supportive as she has over many years as she recovers from a broken wrist. However, the show must go on; thanks to Dr Steven Rynne for presenting a recording of the presentation and fielding any questions at the conference…arigato Steven!! If you would like to watch or listen to the recording, please find uploaded YouTube video on Current Research page (https://www.coachingthecoaches.net/research)
Looking at my research and reasons for starting this project, the aims of the research was to understand why elite age grade rugby union players play their sport and what they look for from their environments and coaches, by ways of motivation, emotional support and learning assistance throughout these critical years of development. Having a 17 year old son whom has dropped out of rugby due to a misalignment between player’s aims, goals and motivations against the environments and coaching practices used, this was developing into a critical area to address.
Additional to my background and passion around the sport, I wanted to investigate this age grade of player whom are entering both a perceived period of sport specialisation and new stage of personality development, combining a period of high commitment and increased stress towards sport participation. For this example, it sees players committing to strategies and plans through intentionality and goal directedness within rugby and other facets like university and work, which enables them to achieve important goals and solve various life tasks.
At this stage of life or personality development, we can start to identify what people want and value in their lives by their choices of where and how to invest their time and effort; therefore, I used Personal Strivings assessment framework as I wanted to investigate the identified motivations of these late-adolescent players to understand what they are trying to accomplish, seeking to gain and trying to avoid noting previous research has shown the possession of and progression towards important life goals such as personal strivings are linked to long term well-being, an important reason for players of this age to be involved in organised sport.
One of the ARU’s major strategic pillars is related to building sustainable elite success which has meant that there is a focus on player engagement by attempting to understand what motivates, engages and drives players. Through a comprehensive understanding of what these players are trying to accomplish, seeking to gain and trying to avoid, an objective of this study is to assist coaches in understanding and contributing to suitable inputs for reasonable, measurable outputs and markers.
Throughout the research, I was looking to identify changes in individual and collective themes or coding of personal strivings when involved in high pressure, competition focused environment and community based club focused rugby. On investigating personal strivings or typical daily goals of elite age grade rugby union players during two different phases of the rugby season (during Super20 high performance competition and on return to club environment), I used Emmons model of Personal Strivings assessment as framework for the research. I drafted a questionnaire to ask players to consider objectives that they would typically or characteristically be trying to accomplish on a daily basis within and away from their sport. I asked players to consider goals or objectives that they would be typically or characteristically trying to accomplish or attain on a daily or regular basis within and away from rugby. The players were asked at both collection phases for 5 Rugby specific strivings and between 5 and 10 global strivings or non sport specific strivings and advised the players that personal strivings can be positive through behaviours sought after or approached or negative through avoidance or prevention, based upon actual intended or instances of behaviour, as opposed to resulting behaviours or actions results.
During 1st phase, identified as HP section of season, it was shown that most involved players are more concerned with success, continuous improvement and setting or achieving identified levels of excellence within rugby, more so than improving personal well being, happiness and avoiding challenges faced in sport. As previously suggested, in rugby environment, these players portray themselves as highly driven individuals, focused on perceived success within rugby. There was a substantially significant increase in strivings mentioning personal health, happiness, appreciation and well being when looking at identified global strivings or non-sport specific strivings.
Throughout their answers, the term “respect” is used more frequently (15 x) than “fun” (4) and “enjoy” (8) across all strivings, which could be seen as the building of relationships and growing appreciation towards other coaches and players involved within the program while the term “improving” was most frequent amongst player’s offered strivings, focusing on improvement to achieve or improve towards goals and greater concern to accomplishment than well-being or improvement of emotions. During this High Performance phase of their season, players displayed increased numbers of intimacy and affiliation strivings in global/non-rugby specific strivings, suggesting once away from the goal focused atmosphere of rugby, their focus is less on approval, acceptance or concern for others around them and more driven for seeking stronger interpersonal relations away from their sport, personal happiness, well-being and improving aspects of themselves.
During 2nd phase, on player’s return to club or “recreational” rugby, these players are still showing strivings displaying them to be highly motivated and show high levels of achievement strivings, particularly in sports settings. Their achievement goals within rugby are very much individualised and personally focused, looking to improve themselves and their capabilities as opposed to “winning”. Intimacy and personal growth strivings such as happiness, meaningful, quality relationships and appreciation are again heavily displayed away from rugby settings.
Referencing and looking into the the coach relationships with involved players, both data collections displayed the players recognising the coaches as a resource more than part of relationship, using affiliation terms and goals when mentioning coaches. It appears players relationships with coaches are concerned with seeking approval or generalising statements where players appears to be concerned with social group or playing squad acceptance. At 1st data collection, there is a heavy reliance and mentioned themes of players seeking "feedback" and "learning" from coaches to achieve personal growth strivings and achievement strivings. However, later in season during phase 2 when exited HP stage, players showed significantly lower examples of displaying respect or acknowledgement to coaches and lower reliance and zero mentioned examples of themes where players are seeking "feedback" and "learning" from coaches to achieve personal growth strivings and achievement strivings. Was this the aims of the involved coaches or could teaching styles or learning environments be adapted to gain more player input and involvement at both stages?
From this research, my initial recommendations from findings include suggesting that if rugby clubs or programs within Australia wish to invest in long term involvement and development of these players, they should acknowledge that self-defining memories of their current involvement and development pathway serve to motivate goal directed behaviour in future as “what people presently feel about past events is a function of how relevant those moments are to long term goals” (Singer & Salovey, 1993).
Understanding where coaches fit into involved player’s personality development and how their involvement and influence is perceived by players at both phases offers a potential framework for coaches of this age grade at different stages and environments. For the first collection in competitive stage, investigating into responses from all players, themes where "coaches/coach/coaching" are used sees a high level of affiliative concerns where players relationships with coaches are concerned with seeking approval or generalising statements where players appears to be concerned with social group or playing squad acceptance.
The findings from this research mirror and are supported by Visek’s research which suggests high effort, positive coach relationships and challenging environments promoting self development and learning is recognised as fun in HP atmospheres. Research completed by Visek and others in 2015, while investigating for a theoretical framework of fun for age grade athletes participating in organised sport, the research involving athletes ages up to 19 years old found determinants or frequently coded answers such as Trying hard (Setting and achieving goals, Being strong and confident, Competing), Positive Coaching (When a coach encourages or treats players with respect, A coach who knows a lot about the sport) and Learning and improving (Being challenged to improve and get better at your sport, Learning from mistakes and/or new skills) as being highly important and frequent answers (Visek et al., 2015). Therefore, it could be considered that these highly driven players are gaining fun and/or enjoyment as being part of high-performance atmosphere as many of the sport specific personal strivings offered from players involve similar language to determinants mentioned within Visek’s research. This research would also support my previous suggestions that players involved and committed to high performance programs within organised sport are habitually focused on positively acting towards attaining goals with an individual emphasis or emphasis on personal success, accomplishment and competing with standard of excellence or mastery of environment as opposed to collective goals or meaningful connections, with team rituals and close friendships being less important or sought after within sporting contexts (Visek et al., 2015).
What would I change or how could similar research be improved in future? The used methodology could be improved through the use of interviews, follow up questions or initial questioning in person for better explanations of strivings, offer more context of what’s wanted or expected from answers or gain better gain understanding of answers offered through digital questionnaires or survey responses. I would alos like to develop strategies and techniques to form longitudinal studies where players involvement is measured 2-3 years after this stage to see if still involved and enjoying the sport or if displaying examples of burnout such as emotional exhaustion, reduced perceived accomplishment and devaluation of sport, resulting in dropout or unfulfilled self-determined motivations.
Thanks again for your attention and support; feel free to contact via email or social media if you have any questions regarding the research.
