and on the road travelling to and from competition in elite sport, opportunities to 2
invest the energy into preparing such a strategy may, at times, seem impractical 3
(Halliwell, 1990).
4
In concluding this theme, the results of this study suggest that coaches and 5
practitioners may need to consider employing player-led strategies to impact on 6
player learning, regardless of the perceived barriers. With positive psychological 7
outcomes perceived to be associated with its application, there is potential value in 8
exploring the impact of delivering video as a self-modeling pre-competition strategy 9
to youth players. Given that improved emotions / mood was an oft-cited 10
consequence of watching video prior to performance, and that emotional profiles 11
fluctuate considerably in the time leading up to competition (Hanton, Thomas, 12
Maynard, 2004), manipulating the video in the lead-up to competition may be an 13
important strategy for helping the player to regulate their ideal performance state.
14
The difficulty of controlling the emotional impact of video work in teams was also 15
apparent when players were discussing the use of video as a pre-match motivational 16
tool.
17 18
6.13 Delivery Climate 19
The delivery climate was a dimension that captured the environmental, social 20
and contextual factors associated with creating effective video-based learning. In line 21
with recent pedagogical research on this subject, the coach, and the coaching 22
behaviours underpinning this climate was seen as a central factor influencing the 23
impact of video-based practice in youth football (Groom et al., 2011; Nelson et al., 24
2011; Potrac et al., 2006). In line with Groom and colleagues’ grounded theory of 25
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video-based practice, these contextual factors inherent in the delivery process were 1
seen to frame the delivery process in a given scenario, and were seen as capable of 2
influencing all aspects of the delivery process. Generally, more than half of the 3
coaches felt that to optimize video delivery in youth football, video needed to be 4
perceived as a positive or supportive strategy by the players. The players’ responses 5
seem to support this perception. When the players perceived their coach's 6
behaviours as positive, informative, and supportive, they associated this with greater 7
engagement in the learning process, and positive psychological responses, such as 8
positive emotions, confidence, self-reflection and self-directed learning. When the 9
climate surrounding video was negatively perceived by the players, negative 10
psychological responses, such as anxiety, embarrassment, guilt, negative thinking, 11
loss of motivation, loss of self-confidence, and loss of focus were reported.
12
The issue of control over the learning process was raised by the players. The 13
benefits of providing the athlete with greater choice and control over their own 14
delivery is a concept which has been promoted elsewhere within coaching practice 15
(Kidman, Thorpe, Jones, & Lewis, 2001; Kidman, Hadfield, & Chu, 2000). Peer 16
communication was seen by the coaches as an activity through which coaches could 17
develop players’ confidence in their reflection and communication within video-18
based practice. Intuitively, there would appear to be benefits of coaches using this 19
approach, such as improved social interaction in sessions, confidence in 20
communication skills, and, ultimately athletes taking a greater level of ownership for 21
the solutions generated. Nelson and colleagues (2011) suggested that athletes may 22
respond favourably to sessions where the coach actively encourages the athlete to 23
participate in the sessions (i.e., by asking questions, sharing opinions). While the 24
players believed they were ready for greater responsibility, there was a shared 25
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perception amongst the coaching group that many of players they worked with didn’t 1
currently possess the qualities needed to use with the video independently from the 2
coach to enhance their performance. Although a number of the coaches supported 3
the idea of their players being more engaged during video delivery; the players’
4
responses suggest that in reality, the coaches were not supporting this.
5
Recent research has highlighted how openness and honesty from athletes 6
receiving post-performance debriefing was constrained by the perceived power of the 7
coach (McArdle et al., 2010). Similarly, Groom, Cushion, & Nelson (2012) 8
highlighted how substantive discrepancies in experience, technical knowledge, and 9
rights to express knowledge restricted the players’ interactions with the coach in 10
their study within youth football. These authors and others argue that this 11
asymmetrical power balance within practice may result in unintended consequences 12
(i.e., loss of respect, athlete resistance, non-learning – e.g., Nelson et al., 2011).
13
Alongside this power imbalance, concerns over being judged by their team-mates – 14
highlighted earlier - also mean that players may be reluctant to give and receive 15
critical feedback during video sessions. The full-time academy environment usually 16
consists of a group of adolescent males living away from home together, training and 17
playing together day in day out, and often developing close friendships (Coleman &
18
Byrd, 2003). Unless the players felt they were in a supportive climate and had 19
become comfortable in offering feedback to other players, they may be unlikely to 20
risk losing acceptance amongst their peers (Ommundsen, Roberts, Lemyre, & Miller, 21
2005). With this context in mind, it is easy to understand this unwillingness to 22
criticize peers openly.
23
The perceptions of the players and coaches regarding the role of mental 24
toughness offer insight into the autocratic coaching behaviours reported in this study.
25
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While both the coaches and players made the link between video-based practice and 1
the players’ ability to cope psychologically with pressure, the coaches, in particular, 2
viewed the video work as a process of preparing players to cope with the transition 3
between academy and senior football. Thus, a number of the coaches revealed that 4
they were reluctant to be overly positive and supportive within video work, as they 5
felt it would soften the players and prepare them inappropriately for the harsh 6
realities of senior professional football. The reluctance to be overly positive in their 7
feedback may be linked to the perception held by a number of coaches regarding the 8
current level of players’ psychological skills, as discussed earlier.
9
In their study within football, Groom et al., (2012) reported that coaches often 10
used negative past performances as a form of punishment for poor performance (hard 11
power tactic). In their study, these negative images of poor performance were used 12
by the coach to reassert his authority over the group to ‘soften the players up’ for 13
future influence attempts (Raven 1992, 1993). However, in this study the players felt 14
that their best learning experiences took place when a positive, supportive delivery 15
climate was presented by the coach and least when the climate was perceived as 16
negative and critical. The perception of the delivery climate seemed to have a 17
significant impact on one factor in particular: motivation. In sport psychology, 18
motivation represents the force that determines whether a person starts and commits 19
themselves to a specific activity, as well as the effort invested in it. The results of the 20
present study, however, suggest that the players often lost motivation to invest in 21
video learning in response their perception of coach or teammate behaviour. In order 22
to provide insight into the interactions which appear to be occurring within video 23
meetings, the principles of Achievement Goal theory (Nicholls, 1984) may be 24
relevant. Achievement goal theory addresses the environmental factors that foster 25
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task involvement ( i.e., a motivational focus on learning and improvement) or ego 1
involvement (i.e., a focus on normative comparison and ability) . Chief among these 2
factors is the motivational climate produced by significant adults. To obtain the most 3
valuable experience for athletes, coaches are advised to create a task-involving 4
motivational climate that encourages athletes to focus on their own personal 5
development (McArdle & Duda, 2002). In contrast, an ego-involving climate 6
(Newton, Duda, & Yin, 2000) occurs when the coach promotes intra-team rivalries 7
favours the most talented players, and punishes players for making mistakes. Given 8
that coaches need to ensure that players are appropriately motivated and positively 9
perceiving video feedback in order to benefit from video work (Dowrick, 1999), it 10
seems crucial for coaches to carefully consider the messages they are sending to 11
players during delivery. Coaches can benefit from putting together activities within 12
video-based practice which motivate players to take responsibility for their learning.
13
Working with a practitioner with expertise in psychology, such as a Sport 14
Psychologist, might also help the coaches and analysts to maximise the impact of 15
video delivery within sport (Ives et al., 2002). The psychology professional was 16
identified by the players and coaches as a support role which could help optimize 17
video-based practice (i) through the training and delivering of psychological 18
strategies, such as communication skills and imagery and (ii) by helping the coaches 19
and other practitioners understand and target specific psychological outcomes of the 20
video work. For one coach, this was a role currently unfulfilled and required:
21
That’s where the psychologist comes in; looking at individual responses, 22
educating the coach, fine tuning the analysts work. Without integrating the 23
work of the analyst and coach with the expertise of the psychologist on a 24
daily basis, then we may still be thinking we are having this big impact, when 25
in fact we are clueless (C5) 26
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The present study also suggests that the coach-practitioner relationship is one