Knowledge translation and the untapped resource: Exploring the value of a community of practice for mental performance consultants.

Abstract

This research highlights the potential significance of leveraging communities of practice (CoPs) for supporting ongoing learning and advancing professional practice. As formal CoPs are rare within the mental performance field, this held a unique opportunity to understand the value gained from active engagement in intradisciplinary collaboration. It also posed an opportunity to share how professionals seeking to develop knowledge in niche domains of practice might leverage similar forms of social learning spaces. These two purposes inspired this qualitative case study. Our CoP comprised a group of eight experienced mental performance consultants from elite sports with the goal of understanding and exploring our role in supporting athletes with sport-related concussions. Individual reflections and collaboratively developed documents were thematically analyzed using E. Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner's (2021) value creation framework to assess the value created through CoP participation. Positive value across all eight cycles of the framework was identified (e.g., identification and clarification of our role in concussion support-transformative value; critical boundaries within the practical and theoretical concussion landscape-orienting value). Through this article, we explore these values in an effort to provide insight to practitioners of various domains of psychology wishing to create similar social learning spaces. Public Significance StatementThis article highlights the experiences of mental performance consultants who participated in a community of practice (CoP) designed to explore a niche area of professional practice (i.e., concussion support). Reflections from those who participated illustrate value in learning, knowledge translation, and applied practice, while also identifying structural elements which made the CoP successful.