Coaches' perceptions of athletes' stress-related growth following sport injury
Highlights
► We examined coaches' perceptions of athletes' stress-related growth following injury. ► Four dimensions of growth were found: personal, psychological, social, and physical. ► Behavioural indicators that reflected the four dimensions of growth were found. ► These findings have implications for those working with injured athletes.
Section snippets
Philosophical orientation
This study was grounded in a post-positivism paradigm (Guba & Lincoln, 2005). Adopting this paradigm had a number of implications for this study, from the beliefs or assumptions regarding ontology and epistemology (i.e., critical realism and modified dualism/objectivism) to the methodology, including choice of method (i.e., semi-structured life world interview that was literature driven and standard across participants), data collection (i.e., ‘one-shot’ interviews), data analysis (e.g., the
Results
The findings are divided into two sections. The first section, Coaches' Perceptions of Athletes' Stress-Related Growth, provides insights into the participants' perceptions of growth in athletes they had coached. Although each of the participants' ultimately perceived injury to be a negative event with debilitating consequences, they all suggested that it could provide a platform for SRG. The injuries observed by the coaches included a range of fractures, dislocations, strains, and sprains of
Personal growth
Personal growth consisted of seven higher-order themes: beliefs, values, attitude, knowledge, priorities, outlook, and general qualities (see Fig. 1). In terms of beliefs, the coaches reported that the athletes they had coached had developed and/or refined certain general beliefs following their recovery from injury. These beliefs were that hard work pays off in the end (i.e., adhering to one's rehabilitation programme expedites recovery) and one can overcome injury. Nick (trampolining coach)
Discussion
The aim of this study was to examine coaches' perceptions of athletes' SRG following sport injury. Coaches reported various types of SRG following injury that were reflective of athletes' perceptions of growth in previous research (e.g., Podlog & Eklund, 2006; Udry et al., 1997; Wadey et al., 2011), thereby supporting Wiese-Bjornstal et al.'s (1998) integrated model and providing a degree of coherence between athletes and coaches self-reports across studies. Specifically, the coaches described
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the three anonymous referees for their insightful and helpful comments on the earlier draft.
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2017, Progress in Brain ResearchCitation Excerpt :The studies tended to be underpinned by theoretical models although they were not necessarily confined to models of growth and there was no dominant theory or model utilized. Four studies were informed by OVT (viz. Day, 2013; Day and Wadey, 2016; Salim et al., 2015; Tamminen et al., 2013); one study was informed by ACPM (viz. Howells and Fletcher, 2015); one study was informed by FDM (viz. Sarkar et al., 2015); one study was informed by the Janus-faced model of growth (viz. Howells and Fletcher, 2016); two studies were informed by multiple models [viz. Galli and Reel, 2012a: OVT, FDM, Galli and Vealey's (2008) conceptual model of resilience; Wadey et al., 2016: OVT and Self Determination Theory (SDT; Deci and Ryan, 1985)]; and four studies were informed by models not related to growth (viz. Galli and Reel, 2012b; Udry et al., 1997; Wadey et al., 2011, 2013). Specifically, two studies were informed by Wiese-Bjornstal et al.’s (1998) integrated model of response to sport injury (viz. Wadey et al., 2011, 2013): one study was informed by Chickering and Reisser's (1993) seven vectors of development in college students (viz. Galli and Reel, 2012b) and one study (viz. Udry et al., 1997) was informed by a number of stage and adjustment theories (e.g., Heil, 1993; Kubler-Ross, 1969).
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