WK 9 - personal development - life skill development

What are the positive developmental outcomes of sports?

• Winning and losing graciously

• Fair play and morality

• Teamwork and conflict resolution

• Communication

• Dealing with pressure and setbacks

• Leadership

• PYD principles (Nick Holt's work)

• All youth have resources that can be developed

• Focus is on finding characteristics of individuals and social environments that can be harnessed to build strengths and development

• "problem free is not fully prepared"

• Instead when looking at how sport might develop character and skills, we should look to grow strengths

What kind of outcomes might be considered within PYD?

• Bonding, awareness of diversity, inclusivity, race, differences

• Resilience

• Social, emotional, cognitive, behavioural and moral competence

• Self-determination, self-efficacy, identity development

• Positive outlook, optimism

• Prosocial behaviour and expectations

PYD models - 5Cs (Lerner)

• Confidence, character, caring, contribution, competence, connection

• Only called 5c model instead of 6c because

if you can develop all of the other cs then you will make contribution

PYD model - 5C:

• Mindful of overlap between concepts

• Argued that there are 2 key dimensions here instead of 6:

• First dimension prosocial values (care, character, connection, contribution)

• And another dimension of agency (confidence, competence)

PYD models - Holt's grounded theory

• Implicit process

acquire life skills naturally through sport expreinces without a structured life-skill curriculum

PYD models - Holt's grounded theory

• explicit process

 life skills program focus, engage in life skill building activities with the sport, transfer activities

Implicit vs explicit perspective

• Implicit:

• Structuring the sport context - recognising the inherent demands of sport

• Facilitating a positive climate - foster positive relationships and support efficacy

Implicit vs explicit perspective

• Explicit

• Discussing life skills

• Practicing life skills

• Discussing transfer - enhance confidence for transfer

• Practicing transfer - provide opportunities to apply life skills beyond sport

How to measure PYD?

youth experience survey - based on current involvement in sport if they have had experiences

What does an explicit PYD program look like

• PYD is reflected in nine core values taught in the program:

respect, responsibility, courtesy, honesty, integrity, sportsmanship, confidence, judgement and perserverance

Coaches in PYD program are

trained and certified through a formal training program

Systematic review and meta-analysis of sport-based programs on PYD (Bruner et al., 2021)

• They found significant effect sizes on competence, confidence and life skills outcomes

• but no effect for

• Character and connection - respect for rules, holding high standards, morality and bonds with people and places

• PYD climate - eg leadership support, autonomy support

• Health - physical, mental, social (eg resilience, mood)

How to improve the PYD evidence

• Greater articulation of PYD definitions and frameworks guiding PYD research in sport

• Careful consideration and greater consistency in the operational definitions of PYD outcomes through sport to foster a more efficient result synthesis

Implicit methods for developing PYD

• Hold a PYD philosophy - base your philosophy on personal growth and life skill development

• A strengths-based approach - focus feedback and opportunties on strengths to be developed rather than problems to solve

• Build positive relationships - open, approachable, tolerant, peer-to-peer support and mentoring, genuine care and consideration

• A prosocial team culture - is there psychological safety in the group?

• Provide autonomy - help people think, make mistakes and grow

Explicit methods for generating PYD

• Directly discuss and teach life skills - talk about the benefits of hard work, talk of responsibility to self and team, define life skills and talk about them

• Create ways to practice life skills - build a life skill curriculum into your sport training

• Debrief fully and propery

• Give feedback about life skills

• Help transfer beyond sport