Exploring the behavioral indicators of resilience in professional academy youth soccer

Ashdown, B ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4730-1439, Sarkar, M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8338-8500, Saward, C ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9363-3410 and Johnston, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2954-5234, 2024. Exploring the behavioral indicators of resilience in professional academy youth soccer. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology. ISSN 1041-3200

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Abstract

The capacity to demonstrate resilience is important for performance and development outcomes in youth soccer. A key feature of resilience is the demonstration of positive behavioral responses to pressures or setbacks, yet little research exists on the specific behaviors that characterize resilience in the youth soccer literature. This study aimed to explore the behavioral indicators of resilience through focus groups and interviews with 60 participants from six professional soccer academies and one National Soccer Governing Body. The data was collected in two phases, the first involved a discussion of the observable behaviors associated with resilience in youth soccer. In the second phase, participants reflected on examples of resilience behaviors alongside video clips. These acted as a stimulus to contextualize the behaviors arising from the first phase. Content analysis was used to analyze the data and 36 behaviors were identified across six themes: (a) teammate support-focused (e.g., verbal support following mistakes), (b) emotion-focused (e.g., displaying emotional regulation), (c) effort-focused (e.g., physical efforts to overcome challenge), (d) rebound (e.g., positive reactions to a mistake), (e) robust (e.g., showing composure when under pressure), and (f) learning-focused (e.g., willingness to accept feedback). The results offer an insight into a multifaceted range of resilience behaviors in the context of youth soccer. With this knowledge, practitioners can make informed decisions around player development by assessing specific behavioral metrics related to resilience, players can engage in structured self-reflection practices pertaining to resilience development, and researchers can work toward the development of validated observational tools for resilience assessment.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Applied Sport Psychology
Creators:	Ashdown, B., Sarkar, M., Saward, C. and Johnston, J.
Publisher:	Routledge
Date:	6 June 2024
ISSN:	1041-3200
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1080/10413200.2024.2361701 DOI 1901899 Other
Rights:	© 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s)or with their consent.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	24 Jun 2024 12:16
Last Modified:	24 Jun 2024 12:16
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/51613

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