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The Highs and the Lows—Exploring the Nature of Optimally Impactful Development Experiences on the Talent Pathway - a thread 
https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/tsp/aop/article-10.1123-tsp.2020-0034/article-10.1123-tsp.2020-0034.xml
@DCGreyMattersUK
https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/tsp/aop/article-10.1123-tsp.2020-0034/article-10.1123-tsp.2020-0034.xml
@DCGreyMattersUK
We have been very pleased to get so many requests for our latest paper. Based on the interest and recent confusion in this area, we thought it would be useful to offer an overview, but clearly, you are better off reading the paper in full!
Despite broad agreement that challenge is one of the most robust factors in talent development, there is less about what this means for the individual or how programmes can be designed to optimise impact on the performer.
The central point of the paper is that the experience/perception of the individual athlete, and therefore the impact of any occurrence, should be the focal point for talent development.
We suggest that, rather than thinking about external challenges or stressors, the focus on athlete’s perceptions leads us to consider their experience and emotional response to challenge factors.
A wide body of literature from the psychological domain converges on several key points:
A. Emotional experiences appear to drive a cognitive response, invoking greater frequency and depth of reflection.
A. Emotional experiences appear to drive a cognitive response, invoking greater frequency and depth of reflection.
B. Differences in the valence of emotion appear to provoke different types of cognition.
C. Negative emotion appearing to promote more detail orientated processing in a careful systematic manner.
C. Negative emotion appearing to promote more detail orientated processing in a careful systematic manner.
In contrast, positive emotions may focus attention on generalities (Gasper & Clore, 2002; Schwarz & Clore, 1996).
Emotional disturbances at both ends of the spectrum come at a cost, the athlete who is unable to cope or subject to an emotional load for an extended period can suffer maladaptive consequences.
Those with appropriate resources are likely to benefit in terms of learning and development.
The coach’s role should be to utilise and provoke a range of emotional reactions to engage each individual, offering varied points of reflection from which to maximize learning.
The coach’s role should be to utilise and provoke a range of emotional reactions to engage each individual, offering varied points of reflection from which to maximize learning.
In short, experiences that leave one feeling good all the time are unlikely to engage and energize them across the range of cognitions that support optimal future learning and growth.
This locks to previously provided ideas in that:
A. Some incidents will be traumatic or upsetting for the athlete. Challenge to one’s personal performance is rarely pleasant but, we suggest, essential!
A. Some incidents will be traumatic or upsetting for the athlete. Challenge to one’s personal performance is rarely pleasant but, we suggest, essential!
B. Athlete learning is optimised when skills are provided before challenges, then tested through challenges, then tweaked afterwards to embed the learning before another sequence. TEACH-TEST-TWEAK-REPEAT
There are clearly a number of complex decisions involved in this process and the coach needs to keep an eye on the intended athlete curriculum (the planned experiences for the learner).
This can be understood across two dimensions:
Catering for tomorrow – developing vertical integration or progression which builds on where someone has been (bottom up) to where they are aiming for (top down)
Catering for tomorrow – developing vertical integration or progression which builds on where someone has been (bottom up) to where they are aiming for (top down)
Catering for today - developing horizontal coherence - considering how the various experiences of athletes combine and overlap
Ultimately building shared mental models across pathways to support coherence and integration for the athlete
Ultimately building shared mental models across pathways to support coherence and integration for the athlete
To get all of this right, we need to think about the development of Professional Judgement and Decision Making in coaches/practitioners (there is no one way!).
Without this expertise, it is unlikely we will be able to offer appropriate functional variability for the athlete or help them make the most of their experience.
The paper is also available on Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344862776_The_Highs_and_the_Lows-Exploring_the_Nature_of_Optimally_Impactful_Development_Experiences_on_the_Talent_Pathway
The paper is also available on Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344862776_The_Highs_and_the_Lows-Exploring_the_Nature_of_Optimally_Impactful_Development_Experiences_on_the_Talent_Pathway
