To achieve their strategic priorities, the Football Association of Wales Trust (FAWT) required greater insight into their psychosocial pillar of performance. Specifically, there was a need to explore the personal resources that facilitate youth players to transition into and perform successfully in their national teams. Therefore, the overall aim of this PhD thesis was to create a behaviour-based mental toughness (MT) development framework to support the youth development pathway within the FAWT. To achieve this aim, the thesis consisted of three empirical studies that sought to: (1) examine the psychosocial stressors and situational properties international youth football players experience during the club-to international transition (CIT); (2) explore how players develop the psychological resource of MT to cope with international youth football stressors; and (3) investigate how international youth coaches might be better prepared to support players in developing their MT, through designing and implementing a coach-led MT development intervention. In study one, interviews were conducted with international youth football players, international coaches, and club coaches to explore what stressors players encountered on the international football development pathway, and why players found them demanding due to their situational properties. Participants highlighted a range of performance organisational and personal stressors, and situational properties associated with the CIT. Further, the CIT was perceived as a fluctuating transition with no definitive outcome. Consequently, participants emphasised how players needed to develop MT to navigate this ambiguous transition successfully. However, participants lacked understanding of what being mentally tough looked like or how MT could be developed. Therefore, in study two a shared understanding of MT development was formulated through conducting focus groups with international coaches, and interviews with international youth players, players’ parents, and support staff. Interviews were used to create a MT development framework for the FAWT, which indicated that MT development was a multidimensional process, contingent on players’ transactions with individuals in their wider environment. These individuals’ behaviours influenced players’ propensity to engage in and reflect on contextually relevant mentally tough behaviours (MTbs), leading to MT understanding, development, and maintenance. This MT development framework was then implemented over three phases during an international camp in study three, including: (1) pre-camp coach education on a behaviour-based approach to MT development; (2) in-camp support for coaches to apply this behaviour-based approach; and (3) post-camp player and coach social validation interviews to assess the interventions’ perceived impact. Coaches’ self-efficacy regarding MT development increased following pre-camp education. Further, players’ MT levels significantly increased from pre- to post-camp, which players attributed to their coaches’ abilities to clarify, reinforce, and review the MTbs they should display under pressure. Coaches highlighted how being checked and challenged to frame MTbs appropriately helped them to develop players’ MT more effectively. The findings of this PhD have significantly influenced the international youth football community by enhancing understanding of the stressors players encounter along the international talent development pathway. Moreover, FAWT stakeholders have been provided with a clear framework to effectively support players’ MT development and enable them to navigate these stressors successfully. It is recommended that practitioners developing psychological resources such as MT in sport NGBs first create psychologically informed environments, where there is shared understanding of, and ownership over, psychological development among all key organisational stakeholders. In so doing, practitioners can improve the interrelationships between organisational sub-groups and ensure all stakeholders work together to foster the psychological well-being of athletes.
Developing a Framework of Mental Toughness in Youth Football: Exploring Mentally Tough Behaviours and Personality to Aid Talent Development
McKay, A. (Author). 2023
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis