Developmental Model of Sports Participation - Jean Cote Sampling / Deliberate Play - 8.2 Flashcards
Developmental Model of Sports Participation
Highlights the importance of developmentally appropriate physical training patterns and psycho-social influences.
Identifies 2 pathways towards expertise in sports: early specialisation and early diversification.
Proposes a 3 stage trajectory towards elite and recreational performance:
– Sampling Years; (childhood) age 6-12
– Specializing years; (early adolescence) age 13-15
– Investment years; (early adolescence) age 16+
Start early - more at risk of injuries and burnout
Doesn’t have to be the only pathway
Sampling - as many sports as possible
13-15 - specialise to few sport
16+ investment in one sport
Sampling happened more in the past
see slides
Early specialisation can lead to poor health and lack of enjoyment - muscle imbalances, stress fractures
early specialisation
Focus on deliberate practice
Early introduction of specialised skills
High concentration
Less emphasis on enjoyment
High adult involvement
Single sport
Player drop out
diversification
High amount of deliberate play
Modified rules positive skill development
Increased player involvement
Enjoyable experiences
Little adult involvement
Sample a variety of sports
Increased player retention
Cote et al. (2012)
“The underpinning principle of sport programs for children is to provide space, opportunities for playing and training, and equipment for a large number of children across various sports, so that the best athletes among a large pool of motivated adolescents can be selected.”
7 postulates about youth sport activities
- Early diversification (sampling) does not hinder elite sport participation (in sports where peak performance is reached after maturation).
- Early diversification (sampling) is linked to a longer sport career and has positive implications for long-term sport involvement.
- Early diversification (sampling) allows participation in a range of contexts that most favourably affects positive youth development.
- High amounts of deliberate play during the sampling years builds a solid foundation of intrinsic motivation through involvement in activities that are enjoyable and promote intrinsic regulation.
- High amounts of deliberate play during the sampling years establishes a range of motor and cognitive experiences that children can ultimately bring to their principal sport of interest.
- Around the end of primary school (~12) children should have the opportunity to either choose to specialise in their favourite sport or continue in sport at a recreational level.
- Late adolescents (~16) have developed the physical, cognitive, emotional, social and motor skills needed to invest their effort into highly specialised training in one sport.
testable tenets - deliberate practice
Elite athletes:
- specialize in their main sport earlier than sub elite athletes
- Start deliberate practice earlier than sub elite athletes
- Accumulate more deliberate practice hours than earlier than sub elite athletes
testable tenets - DMSP
Elite athletes
- Sample various sports during childhood instead of specializing in one
- Are involved in greater amounts of deliberate play than deliberate practice during childhood
- Are involved in more deliberate practice and less deliberate play during their teenage and adult years
early specialisation?
Early specialisation through deliberate practice - to gain the 10,000 practice hours need to specialise early in primary sport to become an expert performer.
However, soccer, field hockey (Helsen, Starkes, & Hodges, 1998) and basketball (Baker et al., 2003) - accumulated practice hours are consistently lower than the 10,000 hours.
Soccer research - starting age of elite and later senior professional football players can vary as much as 10 years (5- 14 years) (for review see, Haugaasen & Jordet. 2012)
- Don’t need to specialise early
sampling
Instead of specialising in one sport children should take part in a number of different sports during childhood (Côté, 2007).
Provides an excellent foundation of general motor skills that can be applied in a variety of sports (Baker, Côté, Abernethy, 2003)
Can be a critical factor to the acquisition of decision-making expertise in sport (Berry, et al., 2008).
- More sports played = better at making decisions - training it in a variety of different situations
- can you ‘make it’ if you sample?
Early involvement in a variety of sports can lead to elite performance
– Especially if peak performance occurs after athlete is fully matured
– Perhaps not in gymnastics (peak performance is in mid-late teens)
– Especially if decision-making is a key component
Baker and Cote (2003)
see notes
team ball sports
Experts had:
- More practice (after 12 yoa)
- More additional activities
Matched accumulated hours until 12
Per week differs earlier
Elite train longer and do less sports after 12
But more before 12
At 5.- experts do extra activity per week
programme in which Olympians made the commitment to pursue excellence - Gibbons et al. (2002)
see notes
Few specialised at primary school
Specialisation not until college or later
Not necessary better to specialise early
number of sports played by Olympians from childhood to adulthood
see notes
No. sports reduced at 19-22
number of sports played by male summer Olympians, medalists v non
see notes
More specialised at 19-22
10-14 when most sports tried
- Will you ‘hang around for longer’ if you sample?
Engaging in a variety of sports promotes long term sport participation
cf. early specialisation – psychological and physical costs
– burnout / injury/ dropout etc. (Fraser Thomas et al., 2008; Law
et al., 2007)
Law et al. (2007)
Olympic gymnasts rated their health as lower than international gymnasts and reported experiencing less fun
- more positive youth development through sampling
Different sports offer distinct social contexts and opportunities
Wright and Cote (2003)
– University students
– Diversified sporting experiences related to more positive peer relationships and leadership skills
- Develop important life skills
Important contributor to physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development
- Tend to be more outgoing
Fraser-Thomas and Cote (2009)
Positive:
- Challenge
- Meaningful r’ships
- Sense of community
Negative:
- Poor coach r’ships
- Negative peer influences
- Parent pressure
- Psychological environment
Fraser-Thomas et al. (2008)
Comparred drop-outs and enhaged adolescent swimmers
dropouts were:
- Engaged in fewer extra-curricular activities
- Completed less unstructured swimming play
- Had less 1-1 coaching
- Researched developmental ***
Fransen et al. (2012) - fundamental movement skills
see notes
Boys aged 10-12, who spent many hours in various sports, performed better on standing broad jump (p < 0.05) and gross motor coordination (p < 0.05).
Spending many hours in more than one sport might be beneficial in helping develop strength and motor coordination.
psychosocial development
Sampling provides more enjoyable experiences and increases individual motivation.
Advantages of children sampling: 1. Life skills 2. Pro-social behaviour 3. Healthy identity 4. Diverse peer groups 5. Social capital. (Côté et al., 2009)
If goes wrong less distressed - more going on in life
classification of elements that may be transferable across sports (Schmidt and Wrisberg, 2000)
see notes
early specialisation/diversification
No full clarification of the potential negative or positive effect of early specialization or diversification (Malina, 2010).
Concluded that the literature is inadequate to resolve this issue (Baker, Cobley, & Fraser-Thomas, 2009).
No clear solutions have been drawn in:
- psychology (see Gould, 2010)
- physiology (see Kaleth & Mikesky, 2010)
- biomechanics (see Mattson & Richards, 2010)
deliberate play (Cote, 1999)
Sporting activity that are:
- intrinsically motivating,
- provide immediate gratification
- specifically designed to maximise enjoyment.
Activities such as ‘street’ or ‘backyard football, basketball , with rules adapted from standardised sport rules and monitored by the children playing or an adult involved in the activity
Playful, flexible activities – stimulus for development of intrinsic motivation as well as fundamental motor and cognitive skills through experimental learning.
Trying different sport
Doing it because you want to do it - enjoyment
Motivated by fun
Learning is an aside to having fun
Why is it not used as a tool?
- deliberate play increases IM
Deliberate play is enjoyable and intrinsically motivating
– No adult involvement
– Designed by kids (free to change micro goals)
Kids play because of their own interest (not extrinsic factors)
– More self-directed (self-determination theory; Deci and Ryan)
– Mastery climate
Even if Deliberate practice is ‘enjoyable’ – between 6-12 should kids just play?
just kids?
USOC report - the path to excellence
The USOC surveyed more than 300 athletes who competed in one or more
Olympics between 2000 and 2012 to identify the factors and circumstances surrounding their success.
USOC - factors influencing sport decision (1-5 scale)
Intrinsic love of activity – 4.32 Love of sport – 4.309
Early success – 3.583 Parental influence – 3.489 Coaches recruitment – 3.400 Peer recruitment – 2.805 Sibling recruitment – 2.557 PE teacher influence – 2.299
need to get children to enjoy sport
USOC - average number of sports played
Age U10 – 3.11 Age 10-14 – 2.99 Age 15-18 – 2.2 Age 19-22 – 1.27 Age 22-older – 1.31
- deliberate play - good for learning
Explore physical capacities in various contexts and at minimal cost
– Generate and experiment with new skills
– Adapt to novel and uncertain situations
– Do we need a coach????
Compare 2 hours of backyard basketball with 2 hours basketball class.
Berry et al. (2008) – Australian Football
– Exceptional decision-makers had engaged in more deliberate play in invasion style games as kids.
professional ice hockey players - Soberlak and Cote (2003)
see notes
Over one third of the time that professional ice-hockey players had spent involved in the sport (approximately 3500 hours) were in deliberate play activities while only 3,000 hours were spent in structured hockey activities.
Majority of the deliberate play hours were accumulated prior to the age of 15, whereas the majority of deliberate practice hours were accumulated after that point.
cricket - Weissensteiner et al. (2009)
Focused on the development of expert batting.
Experts reported that a vast investment in unorganised play in the sampling years was important for fostering the creativity, problem-solving ability and adaptability fundamental to later success.
They also reported that they had participated in a variety of sports before opting to devote their efforts exclusively to cricket.
Australian team sports - Baker et al. (2003)
Similar results - comparing expert decision makers an non-expert decision makers from the same Australian national team sports.
The authors claimed that participation in other sports where dynamic decision making is necessary during the sampling years may have augmented the physical and cognitive skills necessary for the athletes’ primary sport
Berry et al. (2008)
see notes
characteristics of informal games (Coakley and Pike, 2009)
84 games in backyards, parks, vacant lots, and school playgrounds.
Observations and interviews indicated that children were interested in four things:
- Action, especially action leading to scoring
- Personal involvement in the action
- A close score (that is, a challenging or exciting contest)
- Opportunities to reaffirm friendships during the game.
Deliberate play provides this…
- at 13 children should have choice to specialise or play
important period for development of identity and competence
– Can fully understand the effects of effort, practice and ability on their competence (Horn and Harris, 2002)
Reduction in number of activities
Increase in practice time / intensity
Increased emphasis on competition
More support provided by family, school, clubs
- from 16 children will specialise
Now is the time to invest in specialised training
– Soberlak and Cote (56% of total practice time took place
between 16-20)
Can make independent decision about the benefits and costs of the intense focus required
