A Qualitative Evaluation of the Effectiveness of a Mental Skills Training Program for Youth Athletes

Lee-Ann Sharp · Charlotte Woodcock · Mark J.G. Holland · Jennifer Cumming · Joan L. Duda

42 citations0/0 files storedThe Sport Psychologist

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Sport Psychology and Performance Psychological Treatments and Assessments Sports and Physical Education Research

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the effectiveness of a mental skills training (MST) program for male youth elite rugby athletes. Three focus groups were held with 21 under-16 male rugby athletes and four male coaches involved in the MST program to examine the quality of service delivery, athlete responses to the MST program, the mental qualities used by athletes, and its perceived influence on athlete performance. Following inductive-deductive content analysis, 40 subcategories and 16 categories emerged. Participants believed the MST program to be an interactive, well-planned program that increased athlete understanding of MST methods and awareness of MST strategies to manage rugby performance. Athletes thought it important that their coaches develop a greater knowledge and understanding of MST methods. Finally, athletes perceived the MST skills and methods they learnt through the MST program were transferable to other sports and areas of their life outside of rugby (e.g., school).

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 42 citations exist upstream.

References

1998Basics of qualitative research : techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory 1994Handbook of Qualitative Research 1992Basics of Qualitative Research 2006Demonstrating Rigor Using Thematic Analysis: A Hybrid Approach of Inductive and Deductive Coding and Theme Development 1990Basic Content Analysis 1994The methodology of Focus Groups: the importance of interaction between research participants 1999The Influence of the Family in the Development of Talent in Sport 1998Advances in sport and exercise psychology measurement

Cited by

2019Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of anAthlete-Informed Mental Skills Training Program for EliteYouth Tennis Players 2023Psychological skills training impacts autonomic nervous system responses to stress during sport-specific imagery: An exploratory study in junior elite shooters 2023Enhancing wellbeing, long-term development, and performance in youth sport: Insights from experienced applied sport psychologists working with young athletes in the United Kingdom

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.