Daniel Gould

Michigan State University | MSU · Institute for the Study of Youth Sports

This investigation was designed to explore sport-related personal development of former high school athletes and to understand the perceived influence of their high school sport experience on their lives over five decades. A retrospective case study design was employed with nine former male varsity athletes from the same small town high school repr...

An authoethnographic case study of the first author’s personal experience of psychosocial development and life skills transfer across his high school sport experience and over his four-decade career as a sport psychology researcher and consultant is presented. Adopting a story-analytic and teller-mode approach, the first author (Dan) conveys and in...

This qualitative, longitudinal investigation had three purposes: (1) to investigate social emotional learning (SEL) outcomes athletes reported from participating in high school basketball; (2) to identify critical incidents that occurred over the course of a season that were associated with SEL outcomes; and, (3) to explore the processes identified...

Sport is viewed as an arena for positive life skill development, including leadership development. In 2015, the NFHS launched an online Captain’s Leadership Training Course. The main purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the course in improving leadership knowledge and ability. An electronic survey was sent to a sample of athlet...

While the impact of coaches on their athletes has been appreciated for more than a century, only recently have researchers reached a consensus concerning the key coaching principles and methods that consistently ensure the most positive outcomes for athletes and coaches. Sport Coaches’ Handbook presents this more holistic approach to coaching and p...

To date no research has investigated the key mediation role of PE department heads in the successful implementation of Positive Youth Development (PYD) programmes. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a PYD-based intervention in the learning trajectory of a PE department head leading the implementation of a PYD programme. A...

North American junior ice hockey is well known for its long-standing practice of housing players with billet families as they pursue aspirations of elite careers. However, little is known regarding billet families and their influence on youth athletes, particularly in junior ice hockey. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how former...

Youth sport participation has been found to have many beneficial physical, psychological, and social consequences, as well as risks for those involved. If the benefits are to outweigh the detriments, youth sport must be thoughtfully constructed. Research can play a major role in understanding how to positively structure youth sport. This paper desc...

This cross-sectional study (1) described the views and practices of a national U.S. sample of high school coaches on the education and training of team captains in leadership; and (2) examined if their views and practices differed as a function of leadership behavior and coaching efficacy. Results of 255 online surveys showed nearly 90% of coaches...

How Generation Z athletes' (those born after 1996) characteristics influence coaching practice has not been examined. This study examines coaches' perceptions of Gen Z athlete characteristics, challenges, and effective coaching strategies. Twelve highly experienced coaches and sport science providers were interviewed and revealed that coaches chara...

Team captains play an important role in promoting positive life-skills development (PLSD) in their teammates. However, little research has been conducted to understand how team captains perceive the value of PLSD in high-performance sport. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to understand how team captains integrate PLSD in high-perform...

Background: Sports-related concussion (SRC) injury rates, and identifying those athletes at the highest risk, have been a primary research focus. However, no studies have evaluated at which time point during an athletic event athletes are most susceptible to SRCs. Purpose: To determine the clinical incidence of SRCs during the start, middle, and...

Background: Sports-related concussion (SRC) injury rates are well established in collegiate athletics through epidemiological studies using the National Collegiate Athletic Association Injury Surveillance System. However, few studies have examined sex differences, time loss, and missed school days in high school athletes, especially at the state l...

Children who are overweight and obese display lower physical activity levels than normal weight peers. Measures of weight status, perceived motor competence, and motor skill performance have been identified as potential correlates explaining this discrepancy. 1881 children (955 males; 926 females; 9.9 years) were assessed as part of the Physical He...

Purpose: We describe the psychological strategies (PS) used by a specialized military population, US Navy explosive ordnance disposal (EOD), during training and military operations. We also aim to establish the relationship between PS and resilience. Methods: The Test of Performance Strategies was adapted to the military environment and subseque...

The mission of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports (ISYS) is to provide leadership, scholarship, and outreach that "transforms" the face of youth sports in ways that maximize the beneficial physical, psychological, and social effects of participation for children and youth while minimizing detrimental effects. Since its inception in 1978, I...

The purpose of the current study was to examine the influences of leader self-efficacy and coaching career outcome expectancies on intentions for advancement in leadership careers of collegiate assistant coaches in the United States. We also investigated psychosocial antecedents of these factors and explored gender differences. Female and male coll...

The purpose of this article is to identify and explore the barriers to holistic coaching in a variety of sport settings in a non-North American-centric culture. Data were derived from a series of interviews drawn from two distinct samples: (a) focus groups conducted with 19 youth sport coaches throughout South Africa and (b) individual interviews w...

Background: We determined differences in knowledge of concussion and reporting behaviors of high school athletes attending urban and suburban high schools, and whether a relationship exists between underreporting and access to an athletic trainer in urban schools. Methods: High school athletes (N = 715) from 14 high schools completed a validated...

Objective To examine if concussion knowledge and awareness disparities exists between underserved African American (AA) adolescent athletes and Caucasian athletes; and, if disparities exist between AAs with and without access to a full-time athletic trainer (AT). Design Cross-sectional. Setting Participants from 14 US high schools (9 within under...

Even though African American girls and/or girls in low-income, urban environments are specifically challenged with their sport involvement, little research has focused specifically on this population’s experience with sport. The purpose of this study was to examine various factors related to sport participation for adolescent girls (predominantly A...

Using a cross-sectional, mixed-method design, this study examined the frequency and psychosocial correlates of eating disorder (ED) symptomatology among male figure skaters (n = 29; Mage = 18.45 years) and explored their perspectives on skating-related weight pressures. One participant (3.7%) scored within range of a clinical ED. Body mass index, s...

Research has indicated that adversity created in training environments can develop mental toughness in adolescent athletes (Bell, Hardy, & Beattie, 2013; Connaughton, Hanton, & Jones, 2010; Gucciardi, Gordon, & Dimmock, 2008). However, few studies (Bell et al, 2013) have explored this development prospectively. Employing a pragmatic, longitudinal,...

Purpose Three undergraduate students’ experiences in a physical activity-based service learning course are chronicled using narrative inquiry. Method Data collection included demographics questionnaires, pre- and postservice interviews, reflection journals, postservice written reflections, and participant observations. The data were analyzed with...

Context: Increased sport participation and sport-related concussion incidence has led to an emphasis on having an appropriate medical professional available to high school athletes. The medical professional best suited to provide medical care to high school athletes is a certified athletic trainer (AT). Access to an AT may influence the reporting...

An estimated 45 million youth participate in organized youth sport in North America. Sport has important physical, psychological, and social developmental consequences for youth. Despite the perceived benefits of youth sport, concerns have been raised about potential injury and burnout for youth athletes competing at high levels as a result of exce...

This case study examined the coaching philosophy of J Robinson, one of the most respected and successful NCAA wrestling coaches in the United States, and the founder of J Robison Intensive Wrestling Camps. Research has that shown that his camps foster short and long term psychological development in its youth participants (Driska et al., in press;...

For a sport skill to be considered a life skill, it must be successfully transferred and applied beyond sport. Life skills transfer is an essential process, but it has yet to be fully delineated within the sport psychology literature. The purpose of the current paper is to present a definition and model of life skills transfer and outline future re...

For athletes, life skills transfer represents the vital ongoing process in their personal development whereby they internalize the skills they have learned in sport and apply them to multiple life domains. The purpose of this article is to offer coaches practical strategies that they can integrate into their coaching to explicitly promote life skil...

With calls for increasing accountability in sport programmes, it is critical for researchers to rigorously examine how sport can contribute to the development of young people. This study was designed as an attempt to understand the nature of sport and sport-based youth development in the community of the Kayamandi Township in South Africa. Three to...

Cultural competence within the field of applied sport psychology consulting is an important yet underemphasized topic. No sport psychology certification to present day includes a comprehensive module of how to augment cultural competence within the practitioner, though we are aware of discussions relating to this topic by the Association for Applie...

This study examines life skills taught by sport coaches working with children and youth in underserved areas in South Africa. A total of 19 coaches participated in five focus groups with coaches discussing the life skills they teach along with the strategies they use to teach these life skills. Twenty higher order themes emerged from the inductive...

This review discusses the need for and importance of knowledge integration and dissemination in coaching science. It is argued that researchers are not paying enough attention to knowledge integration and dissemination. Scientists can better conduct coaching research of high impact by carrying out practitioner needs assessments, relating findings o...

Scholastic sport is a double-edged sword that can have positive or negative effects. Whether those effects are positive or negative depends on those who wield that sword — chiefly, the school’s sports coach. While it is clear that coaches make a difference in ensuring that educational athletics lead to beneficial outcomes for student-athletes, a ke...

There is a paucity of sport parenting research that specifically examines the role parents play in the introductory stages of the youth sport experience, despite the fact that this is when youth involvement is at its highest. To fill this void in the literature, this study examined expert coaches’ views of parent roles in 10-and-under (U10) tennis....

Background: Early sport specialization is not a requirement for success at the highest levels of competition and is believed to be unhealthy physically and mentally for young athletes. It also discourages unstructured free play, which has many benefits. Purpose: To review the available evidence on early sports specialization and identify areas w...

This study used a grounded theory methodology to understand if and how psychological development in youth athletes was facilitated by an ‘intensive’ summer wrestling camp experience. The theoretical sampling approach involved 10 athlete participants of the camp, nine parents of athletes, the director of the camp, and four camp staff members, who to...

This chapter examines the mental development of young tennis players. Sport and exercise psychology is defined as the need for developmentally appropriate tennis discussed, stages or athletic development delineated, and psychosocial characteristics of children at various chronological stages summarized. Key topics pertaining to the development of t...

The present study was designed to assess young athlete's perceived frequency of observing antisocial behaviour in sport, perceived frequency of rule-breaking in sport, and the perceived rationale for why youth are engaging in rule-breaking in sport. The sample consisted of 2479 youth drawn from across the USA. A majority of youth reported observing...

Over the past few decades, there has been increased attention paid to psychological skills usage among high-level athletes. However, little is known about these skills in Japanese rugby players. Considering the significant role of practice in determining competition outcomes, a need exists to assess the usage of psychological skills in both practic...

Objectives The purposes of this study were to (a) examine the prevalence of disordered eating among female figure skaters, (b) compare levels of disordered eating between skaters and their same-age peers, (c) compare levels of disordered eating between elite skaters and their sub-elite counterparts, and (d) examine general and sport-related correla...

Research has shown that coaches learn through reflective practice (Trudel & Gilbert, 2006), that communities of practice can assist the reflective process (Culver & Trudel, 2008), and that problem-based learning can increase critical thought by coaches (Jones & Turner, 2006). To help coaches develop reflective practice skills in an online course, t...

The purpose of this study was to determine if the time-loss (TLIR) and non-time-loss injury rates (NTLIR) in youth football were decreased by the implementation of the P.R.E.P.A.R.E injury prevention program. This study consisted of two groups: coaches and players. Some coaches took the program and select elements of the program were instituted. Th...

Significant social agents are thought to play a vital role in youth development (Brustad, Babkes, & Smith, 2001). The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) commissioned a nationwide survey to examine the effect significant social agents had on youth sport behavior. In Phase I, initial data were collected and results were published in the Journal...

Leadership is a highly desirable skill in athletics and can be carried throughout the lifetime. Too often, however, leadership is only superficially discussed with high school student-athletes and rarely taught or reinforced over time. This article provides a description of a youth leadership club formed at a high school for the purpose of sharing...

In many ways, the history of sport psychology mirrors the history of other longstanding disciplines, including psychology, physical education, and other kinesiology-related disciplines, and has been influenced by larger sociocultural trends for decades, for example, the growth of the Olympic movement, professionalization of sport, and women's liber...

This study examined the impact, both positively and negatively, of an urban youth sport organization that has as its primary goal the development of life skills and character. Twenty-three program participants (13 females, 10 males) between the ages of 10 and 18 years were individually interviewed using a semi-structured qualitative interview guide...

This chapter examines the research on using sport to promote life skills in children and youth and, based on this literature, derives implications for guiding practice. Specifically, the research and theory on factors associated with positive youth development across all out of school or after school activity program contexts is discussed. Next, th...

The following study explored coaching behaviors and youth coaches' justifications for their actions by comparing more effective and less effective coaches from an underserved setting. Reasons for their coaching behaviors were also explored. In-depth interviews and ethnographic observations were conducted with 12 coaches from 6 different youth sport...

While the growth of the sport-for-development movement has coincided with the establishment of a number of sport-for-development organisations, many of these organisations have been top-down development projects or outside-in globalisation projects, which are not as effective as they could be. In an effort to address the gap in the literature on in...

To gain an in depth understanding of the youth leadership development process in sport, qualitative interviews were conducted with high school coaches (6 males; 4 females) known for cultivating leadership in their captains. Hierarchical content analyses revealed that all of the coaches reported proactive approaches toward teaching leadership throug...

Background and Purpose: Given the urgency to design programs to increase physical activity, especially to combat obesity in children, the primary purpose of this study was to investigate perceptions and opinions of a nature-based physical activity intervention designed for low-income urban adolescents. Methods: Four focus groups of adolescents, age...

Increasing global awareness and a growing appreciation for sport-based development programmes has led the post-apartheid South African government to use sport as a tool for empowering marginalized and impoverished communities. However, the sport-for-development programmes that have received the greatest governmental support and been evaluated by re...

The Oxford Handbook of Sport and Performance Psychology includes the latest research and applied perspectives from leaders in the field of performance psychology, presenting sport and performance psychology from myriad perspectives. It looks at individual psychological processes in performance such as attention, imagery, superior performance intell...

Although positive youth development is an important line of inquiry, the evaluation of youth sport organizations that attempt to build character with underserved children remains understudied. To explore the efforts of a sport organization to build character, 66 observations of inner-city baseball and softball practices/games were conducted across...

Objectives This study was designed to assess developmental outcomes underserved youth report from their sports participation; identify perceptions of the sports climate their coaches create; and, measure the relationships between participants reported gains and perceptions of the psychosocial sports climate.Method Participants were 239 urban youth...

This study examines young athletes from an urban sport organization, looking at their overall perceptions of their coaches, perceptions of the best and worst coaching actions, behaviors, and attitudes, and how these varied between practice and game environments. Twenty-three athletes (10 males, 13 females) between the ages of 10 and 18 years partic...

The purpose of this study was to gain a thorough understanding of the high school sport captaincy experience. Thirteen university freshmen (7 males, 6 females) who were high school sport captains the previous year participated in 60-90 min semistructured interviews. Hierarchical content analysis of the data revealed that the majority of participant...

Objective: To examine the role parents played in developing professional tennis players and, specifically, the full array of positive and negative attitudes and behaviors that influenced talent development. Furthermore, this study describes how specific parental behaviors exhibited changed as a function of the stage of talent development the child...

Specializing too early in life can lead to emotional stress, loss of motivation, and burnout, but the research is inadequate to resolve the question of whether early specialization or diversification is more beneficial from a psychological perspective. Nevertheless, some best practices are recommended based on the known benefits and detriments.

Leadership has been identified as an important but underdeveloped life skill among youth athletes. This article discusses a recent effort to develop leadership by taking a formal educational approach to the sport captaincy experience. More specifically, the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports has partnered with the Michigan High School Athletic...

The Personal–Social Responsibility (PSR) Model is a sport-based model that helps young people build their character through physical activity (Hellison, 200317. Hellison , D. 2003 . “ Teaching personal and social responsibility in physical education ” . In Students learning in physical education: Applying research to enhance instruction , Edited by...

The purpose of this study was to explore the importance of psychosocial development in competitive university sport. While research in positive youth development (PYD) has increased in recent years, many perspectives have not yet been studied. The mission of PYD is to develop intangible qualities such as learning life skills, developing character,...

Junior tennis coaches commonly argue that parents must push their children and be very involved to develop their talent, despite the strain on the parent-child relationship that may occur from these tactics. To examine parental influence on talent development and the parent-child relationship, nine professional tennis players, eight parents, and ei...

This study was designed to identify issues and concerns involved in contemporary school sports that are perceived as influencing sports’ potential to achieve educational and developmental objectives (e.g., psychosocial and life skill development). Eleven focus group interviews involving 67 participants were conducted with key constituency groups in...

"Psychosocial Intervention and Referral" is 1 of the 12 content areas in athletic training education programs, but knowledge gained and skill usage after an educational intervention in this area have never been evaluated. To evaluate the effectiveness of an educational intervention in increasing psychology-of-injury knowledge and skill usage in ath...

We review research literature on psychological preparation for Olympic Games performance. We address research identifying psychological characteristics associated with Olympic performance success, studies examining how these attributes are developed, stress and coping in Olympians, evaluation studies of the Olympic experience with particular emphas...

It has been shown that it takes 10 years or 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to develop one’s talent in any field, including athletics (Ericsson, 1996). Given the amount of time, sacrifice, and effort needed to become an expert athlete, it is not surprising that researchers have been interested in examining burnout in competitive athletes (see:...

A useful approach to quantifying factors that influence human performance involves the classification and comparison of so-called "elite" and "non-elite" performers. In this pilot study, the authors classified 6 graduates of the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training program as elite and compared them to 6 age-matched non-elite military personne...

What is mental preparation?What research and practice say about effective mental preparationKey mental preparation principlesSummaryReferencesFurther reading

The purpose of this qualitative case and action research study was to describe and evaluate the implementation of a one-season-long goal setting program in an ice hockey team in Finland. The aim of the study was to explore the process of setting specific and quantitatively measurable goals in team sports. The data were derived from field observatio...

A highly effective method for disseminating knowledge is to observe the most experienced individuals in the field of interest. Although business, teaching, and coaching have been mentoring and apprenticing students for years, the field of applied sport psychology does not have a long formal history of doing so. The puipose of this article is to cap...

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Contents Welcome note........................................................................................................5 Yannis Theodorakis University of Thessaly, GRE, President of the Dept. of PE & Sports Science Preface.........................................................................................................................7...

Psychologic development through sportCritical Issues and Future DirectionsPractical ImplicationsConclusions References

This review is designed to summarize and critique current life skills through sport research. In particular, life skills are defined, the conditions needed to examine life skills development are explored, and the possible theoretical explanations of how, when, under what conditions and why life skills develop in sport participants are discussed. A...

This study was designed to investigate experienced coaches' perceptions of the parent's role in junior tennis and identify positive and negative parental behaviors and attitudes. Six focus groups were conducted with 24 coaches. Content analysis of coaches' responses revealed that most parents were positive influences and espoused an appropriate per...