COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES AMONG ELITE FEMALE GYMNASTS: AN EXPLORATION OF THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SKILLS TRAINING AND NATURAL LEARNING EXPERIENCES

Description

The purposes of this qualitative study were, (a) to compare the competitive strategiesdeveloped by national and international female gymnasts through natural learningexperiences, (b) to compare the competitive strategies used by national gymnasts whobenefited from a psychological skills training (PST) program to those developed byinternational gymnasts via natural learning experiences, and (c) to investigate thefunctions these strategies served in the two aforementioned cases. Individual in-depthinterviews were conducted with three international and six national gymnasts. Three ofthe six national gymnasts followed a PST, whereas the other three did not. Theinternational gymnasts never benefited from PST neither before nor during the study.The results indicated that the strategies developed through natural experiences overtime by the international gymnasts were wider and more elaborate than those of theirnational counterparts, but akin to those used by the national gymnasts who hadbenefited from a PST. The specific consequences of the characteristics of theinternational context and psychological skills training on the strategies gymnastselaborated were also highlighted. Results are discussed relative to research ondeliberate practice and sport talent development (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Romer,1993).

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