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The purpose of this study was to gain understanding of adolescents’ positive and negative developmental experiences in sport. Twenty-two purposefully sampled adolescent competitive swimmers participated in a semistructured qualitative interview. Content analysis led to the organization of meaning units into themes and categories (Patton, 2002). Athletes suggested their sport involvement facilitated many positive developmental experiences (i.e., related to challenge, meaningful adult and peer relationships, a sense of community, and other life experiences) and some negative developmental experiences (i.e., related to poor coach relationships, negative peer influences, parent pressure, and the challenging psychological environment of competitive sport). Findings underline the important roles of sport programmers, clubs, coaches, and parents in facilitating youths’ positive developmental experiences in sport, while highlighting numerous important directions for future research. Implications for coach training and practice are outlined.

This study examined the use of four advanced psychological strategies (i.e., simulation training, cognitive restructuring, preperformance routines, and overlearning of skills) and subsequent competitive anxiety responses. Semistructured interviews were employed with eight highly elite athletes from a number of team and individual sports. Participants reported using each strategy to enable them to interpret their anxiety-response as facilitative to performance. Only cognitive restructuring and overlearning of skills were perceived by the participants to exert an influence over the intensity of cognitive symptoms experienced. The perceived causal mechanisms responsible for these effects included heightened attentional focus, increased effort and motivation, and perceived control over anxiety-related symptoms. These findings have implications for the practice of sport psychology with athletes debilitated by competitive anxiety in stressful situations.

Research on the conceptual model of coaching efficacy (Feltz, Chase, Moritz, & Sullivan, 1999) has increased dramatically over the past few years. Utilizing this model as the guiding framework, the current study examined: (a) coaching experience and sex as predictors of coaches’ coaching efficacy; (b) sport experience, sex, and the match/mismatch in sex between coach and athlete as predictors of athletes’ perceptions of their coach’s effectiveness on the four coaching efficacy domains; and (c) whether coaches’ reports of coaching efficacy and athletes’ perceptions of coaching effectiveness differed. Coaches (N = 26) and their athletes (N = 291) from 8 individual and 7 team sports drawn from British university teams (N = 26) participated in the study. Coaches completed the Coaching Efficacy Scale (CES), while athletes evaluated their coach’s effectiveness using an adapted version of the CES; coaches and athletes also responded to demographic questions. Results indicated that, in coaches, years of coaching experience positively predicted technique coaching efficacy, and males reported higher game strategy efficacy than females. In athletes, sport experience negatively predicted all perceived coaching effectiveness dimensions, and the mismatch in sex between athletes and their coach negatively predicted perceived motivation and character building coaching effectiveness. Finally, on average, coaches’ ratings of coaching efficacy were significantly higher than their athletes’ ratings of coaching effectiveness on all dimensions. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for coaching effectiveness.

The present study explored the perceived affect of personal and situational variables, perception of pain, and imagery ability on the function and outcome of an Olympic athlete’s use of imagery. To gain an in-depth understanding of these factors, semistructured interviews were conducted across three phases of injury rehabilitation, and return to competition. The athlete also completed the Athletic Injury Imagery Questionnaire-2 (Sordoni, Hall, & Forwell, 2002), the Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire-2 (Roberts, Callow, Markland, Hardy, & Bringer, 2008), and the Visual Analogue Scale for pain (Huskisson, 1974). Findings highlight the perceived affects of personal and situational variables and imagery ability on the athlete’s responses to injury and function of imagery use. Further, this usage was perceived by the athlete to affect outcome depending on the phase of rehabilitation. Interestingly, perception of pain was not considered by the athlete to influence imagery use, this might have been due to the low pain rating reported.

The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of motivational self-talk on self-efficacy and performance. Participants were 46 young tennis players (mean age 13.26, SD 1.96 years). The experiment was completed in five sessions. In the first session, participants performed a forehand drive task. Subsequently, they were divided into an experimental and a control group. Both groups followed the same training protocol for three sessions, with the experimental group practicing self-talk. In the final session, participants repeated the forehand drive task, with participants in the experimental group using motivational self-talk. Mixed model ANOVAs revealed significant group by time interactions for self-efficacy (p < .05) and performance (p < .01). Follow-up comparisons showed that self-efficacy and performance of the experimental group increased significantly (p < .01), whereas self-efficacy and performance of the control group had no significant changes. Furthermore, correlation analysis showed that increases in self-efficacy were positively related to increases in performance (p < .05). The results of the study suggest that increases in self-efficacy may be a viable mechanism explaining the facilitating effects of self-talk on performance.

“Choking under pressure” is a maladaptive response to performance pressure whereby choking models have been identified, yet, theory-matched interventions have not empirically tested. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether a preperformance routine (PPR) could reduce choking effects, based on the distraction model of choking. Three “choking-susceptible”, experienced participants were purposively sampled, from 88 participants, to complete ten-pin bowling deliveries in a single-case A₁-B₁-A₂-B₂ design (A phases = “low-pressure”; B phases = “high-pressure”), with an interview following the single-case design. Participants experienced “choking” in the B₁ phase, which the interviews indicated was partially due to an increase in self-awareness (S-A). During the B₂ phase, improved accuracy occurred when using the personalized PPR and, qualitatively, positive psychological outcomes included reduced S-A and decreased conscious processing. Using the personalized PPR produced adaptive and relevant, task-focused attention.

The study’s objective was to investigate the motivational significance of the coach-athlete relationship in team sports. 591 athletes completed the Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire (Newton, Duda, & Yin, 2000) to assess perceptions of the coach-created motivational climate and two Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaires to assess direct perceptions (Jowett & Ntoumanis, 2004) and meta-perceptions (Jowett, in press) of the relationship quality. Canonical correlation analyses revealed that the perceived task-involving features of the coaching climate, in which role importance, co-operation, and improvement are emphasized, were associated with experiencing higher levels of closeness, commitment, and complementarity with the coach. Perceptions of the ego-involving features of the coach-created environment which emphasizes punitive responses to mistakes, rivalry, and unequal recognition were associated with lower levels of perceived closeness, commitment, and complementarity with the coach. These results support the notion that the coach-athlete relationship has implications for the motivation of athletes participating in team sports.

The aim of the study was to examine and reflect on the learning experiences of a neophyte sport psychologist. Over a 9-week applied internship the first author kept a reflective diary that followed Boud’s (2001) three elements of journal writing. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith & Osborn, 2003) of the data identified 11 themes from the diary, 8 of which were contextualized in 3 self-narrative accounts, including the working environment, anxiety, confidence, being a performer, being a learner, relationships, feedback and practical content. Reflecting on these incidents the neophyte’s supervisor offers another perspective, and along with the narrative accounts, furthers our understanding of important factors, and indicates recommendations to ensure quality training for professional development.