whether they watch their intervention during the week. Considering the limited 3
knowledge of athletes’ responses to self-modeling within sport (Barker & Jones, 4
2006; Ram & McCullagh, 2003; Ste-Marie, 1999), and particularly youth football to 5
date, a second aim of this study is to examine the players’ psychological processes in 6
response to the video intervention. It is important within this research study to 7
understand how football players respond to using observation within a competitive 8
environment, in order to make practical recommendations. Given the important role 9
that these psychological processes have been shown to play in mediating the 10
information input and behavioural responses to video (Dowrick, 1999), it is 11
important to accurately capture the mental aspects as they affect athletes within a 12
real-life sport settings. As captured in study one of this thesis, psychological 13
processes are perceived to play a positive role in video self-modeling in football. In 14
particular, the role of self-efficacy and positive / negative affect will be the focus of 15
this study. However, as no studies to date have examined the impact of self-16
modeling videos on these variables within elite sport settings to date, no hypotheses 17
are offered within this study.
18 19
7.13 Methodological Considerations 20
With the current study taking place within an elite youth football setting, a 21
number of preliminary methodological considerations are important to discuss before 22
addressing the specific methods in detail. Firstly, numerous video self-modeling 23
studies in sport have employed the use of a control group under experimental 24
conditions in an attempt to control the extraneous variables which could impact on 25
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the research (Law & Ste-Marie, 2005; Starek & McCullagh, 1999). When within-1
group variability is high – as is likely within applied environments where control is 2
more difficult to achieve compared to laboratory conditions - performance gains that 3
are small, but which hold high practical significance for the athlete, coaches and 4
organisation, may not appear significant (Marlow, Bull, Heath, & Shambrook, 1998).
5
Given the subtle changes that can occur in performance and psychological responses 6
within elite environments (Barker, Mellalieu, McCarthy, Jones, & Moran, 2013), a 7
design is needed that was flexible enough to capture these. Moreover, the design 8
needed to fit in with the natural structure and challenges of the day to day 9
environment. For example, due to the timing of this study, all of the players selected 10
to participate in this study were due to face an important selection decision at the end 11
of the intervention period. It is recognized that within high level youth soccer 12
programmes players must perform well to secure re-selection (Stratton, Reilly, 13
Williams, & Richardson, 2004). Adopting traditional group-based experimental 14
design would thus require the withholding of the intervention from numerous players 15
within the club (a control group). This could be considered as serving the needs of 16
the researcher before those of the athlete or client. Further, due to practical issues 17
presented by external factors, such as youth international commitments and progress 18
in competitive competitions (e.g., F.A. youth cup fixtures), the design needed to be 19
flexible enough to cope with possible disruption during the course of the 20
investigation. Taking these points into consideration, a traditional group-based 21
experimental design was not considered appropriate in this case. In contrast, a single 22
case design methodology was deemed to be a worthy alternative to overcome these 23
challenges, having been used in sport psychology as a popular method to assess 24
psychological interventions across participants (Callow & Waters, 2005; Landin &
25
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Herbert, 1989). This design is also more effective at controlling threats to internal 1
validity such as carry-over effects, than the reversal / withdrawal design (Backman &
2
Harris, 1999), through the use of repeated measures (to closely monitor the process 3
of change) and individual participants (as their own control).
4
In single-case designs (SCD), an independent variable (B) or multiple 5
independent variables (C, D) are experimentally manipulated with cases serving as 6
their own control by collecting and returning to a baseline (A) condition (Horner et 7
al., 2005; Kazdin, 2010). Each condition, or phase, is characterized by the collection 8
of multiple direct observation data points until a clear pattern is established before 9
moving to subsequent phases (e.g., return to baseline or intervention condition).
10
Internal validity is established through observing changes in the dependent variable 11
across more than one manipulation of the independent variable in at least three 12
consecutive data collection periods (Horner et al., 2005; Kratochwill et al., 2010).
13
SCDs are serial-dependent, meaning the measurement is consecutive in time, the 14
case is the primary unit of analysis, and the experiment is the instrument (Perone, 15
1999). A multiple baseline (i.e., multiple participants), repeated measures single case 16
design has been used successfully by a number of researchers to study the effects of 17
video self-modeling on individual participants within sport. For example, Ram &
18
McCullagh (2003) studied the effects of a VSM intervention on intermediate level 19
volleyball players’ serve performance and self-efficacy across a 10 day period. The 20
authors employed a think-aloud protocol and qualitative interviews to explore the 21
participants responses to the intervention. Although limitations were noted in this 22
study (e.g., a short intervention period), their approach provided a strong, flexible 23
design that could be used within applied settings. A major strength of this design is 24
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that it enables the researcher to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention 1
programmes in this environment.
2
In football contexts, researchers have employed single case multiple-baseline 3
designs to examine the impact of self-talk strategies on soccer low-drive shooting in 4
elite female youth soccer players (Hardy, Gammage & Hall, 2001; Johnson, 5
Hrycaiko, Johnson, & Halas, 2004) and a psychological skills intervention 6
(comprising relaxation, imagery and self-talk) on position-specific performance of a 7
soccer midfielder player (Thelwell & Greenlees, 2001; Thelwell et al., 2006).
8
Noteworthy in these studies is the attention to performance subcomponents (e.g., 9
tackling and passing in soccer) over and above global performance scores (such as 10
win-loss ratios, passing patterns or possession). Thelwell and colleagues (2006) 11
argued that the majority of the published applied-based studies have examined 12
performance outcomes alone, and neglected performance subcomponents which 13
could offer greater sensitivity of information for the applied practitioner. Individual 14
players within the youth football setting are focused on refining their performance in 15
preparation for senior football (Richardson, Gilbourne, & Littlewood, 2004) and 16
therefore attention to performance subcomponents is considered relevant and suitable 17
in this current investigation. While a number of studies in football have ‘simulated’
18
sport performance, so that it could be examined under experimental conditions in a 19
more controlled environment, we are primarily interested in understanding 20
performance of young football players within real competitive fixtures. While each 21
of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages (Atkinson & Nevill, 2001), 22
we chose to include sport-specific dependent variables in competition, rather than 23
simulated soccer skills.
24
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7.2 Method 1
2
7.21 Experimental Design