Papastaikoudis Foivos, Collins Rosie, Collins Dave
Department of Sport, Health Sciences and Social Work, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Grey Matters Performance Ltd., London, United Kingdom.
Front Sports Act Living. 2023 Mar 15;5:990617. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2023.990617. eCollection 2023.
Extensive research has been carried out on Talent Development (TD) environments and an increasing amount of work shows the development of psychological characteristics as an important formal part of the academy experience. Importantly, however, very little attention has been paid to what types of skills, if any, young players arrive with. In other words, there seems to be an assumption that young athletes arrive at the academy as a blank canvas.
As such, to investigate whether players' arrive with these psychological characteristics, we looked across a sample of young footballers' and rugby players' personal experiences (such as, family input, sporting background or personal challenges) prior joining the academy. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted, and data were analysed via thematic analysis.
Our findings suggested that young athletes acquired an aptitude from general experiences, whereby they had already started to develop and deploy specific skills (such as, reflective practice, mental skills or seeking social support) to navigate particular challenges, prior to arriving at the academy.
Implications include the need for coaches and psychologists to assess young athletes' skillsets and pre-academy experiences upon arrival and use this as a starting point for developing tailored and individualised pathways that would enable them maximise their potential.
针对人才发展（TD）环境已开展了广泛研究，越来越多的研究表明心理特征的发展是学术经历的重要正式组成部分。然而，重要的是，对于年轻运动员入学时所具备的技能类型（如果有的话）却很少有人关注。换句话说，似乎有一种假设认为年轻运动员进入学院时是一张白纸。
因此，为了调查运动员入学时是否具备这些心理特征，我们研究了一批年轻足球运动员和橄榄球运动员在进入学院之前的个人经历（如家庭影响、运动背景或个人挑战）。我们进行了个人半结构化访谈，并通过主题分析对数据进行了分析。
我们的研究结果表明，年轻运动员从一般经历中获得了一种能力，在进入学院之前，他们已经开始培养和运用特定技能（如反思性实践、心理技能或寻求社会支持）来应对特定挑战。
这意味着教练和心理学家需要在年轻运动员入学时评估他们的技能组合和入学前的经历，并以此为起点制定量身定制的个性化发展路径，使他们能够最大限度地发挥潜力。
