A Longitudinal Examination of Neophyte Applied Sport Psychologists' Development

Abstract

Applied sport psychology students undergo, more or less, changes in how they see themselves professionally as service providers as they proceed through their graduate training. Knowledge about early professional development, changes, and conflicts would likely help trainees, supervisors, and educators enhance the quality of applied sport psychology education. In this study, we interviewed Australian trainee applied sport psychologists (5 females, 3 males, age range 22-32 years) on three occasions about their development as practitioners across the first 2 years of their graduate education. Trainees' motivations for becoming practitioners and their models of service evolved over the 2 years. When first interacting with clients, trainees often adopted rigid "expert" problem-solving approaches to service delivery. With time and more experience, some individuals began to focus on developing relationships with clients and adapting wider and more flexible interventions to suit athletes' needs. The experiences of our sample inform trainees' early professional development, and our findings parallel studies from mainstream counseling psychology.For applied sport psychologists in training, one central area of professional growth is the development of service delivery competence, a term not clearly defined in the literature. Drawing on studies in which coaches, athletes, and experienced consultants discussed effective practice recently described service delivery competence as a multidimensional constellation of knowledge, skills, and processes in which practitioners: (a) meet clients' needs and expectations, (b) develop and maintain mutually beneficial relationships, (c) understand psychological interventions and apply them to assist athletes in specific situations, (d) empathize with athletes' situations and interpret them through the lenses of suitable theories or models, and (e) reflect on how they (the practitioners) have influenced the interactions and outcomes of service provision. This definition of service delivery competence may be helpful for identifying the skills and abilities that practitioners are striving to master as they mature professionally.

“It's My Dream to Work With Olympic Athletes”: Neophyte Sport Psychologists’ Expectations and Initial Experiences Regarding Service Delivery

“…These findings extend previous research on the early stages of practitioner development (e.g., Tod et al, 2009;Tod & Bond, 2010), such as providing more detail on the pivotal transition from "lay helper" to "beginning student" than other studies. Pivotal learning experiences that involved interactions with clients, supervisors, guest speakers, and peers parallel with Rønnestad and Skovholt's (2003) stage model detailing the influence of professional elders and feedback from others (clients, peers, supervisors).…”

“…Tod and Bond (2010) extended this research by undertaking a longitudinal case study of a neophyte ASP practitioner, Anna, during her initial 2 years of training and service delivery, providing insights about the value of experiential learning through client contact, personal therapy, and supervision groups. Similar to Tod et al (2009Tod et al ( , 2011, parallels emerged between Anna's story and Ronnestad and Skovholt's (2003) model of professional development.…”

“…(e) How do you feel that you have developed? These prompts were generated from the literature (e.g., Tod et al, 2009). The data collected from diaries and interviews were included in the final analysis.…”

“…Asking participants to keep diaries and reducing the time between interviews may help to reduce limitations associated with retrospective recall and shed a more fine-grained understanding of trainees' initial perceptions and experiences. Whilst previous research (Tod et al, 2009(Tod et al, , 2011Tod & Bond, 2010) provided practitioner's reflections on their training experiences, such a reduction in time between interviews will provide a more comprehensive understanding and will increase knowledge of an often uncertain and emotionally charged period of development. Additionally, previous research has focused on those who are practitioners or who wish to continue their career in sport psychology.…”

“…As trainees, motivations to enter into the field of applied sport psychology included the gratification of helping others and a desire to help athletes with issues they had experienced as sport participants. Tod et al (2009) argued that some of these motives were socially acceptable transformations of self-serving desires to reduce intra-and inter-personal conflicts. Also trainees often adopted rigid "expert" problem-solving approaches to service delivery when initially interacting with clients.…”