The role of psychological and environmental characteristics in talent development in sport: A mixed methods study

The aim of the present mixed methods study was to explore how psychological and environmental characteristics exert direct and interacting influences on the development of youth athletes aged 12-21 y in the UK. Participants were 81 (n=38 male, n=43 female) athletes with a Mean (SD) age of 15.77 (2.05) years. We adopted an explanatory-sequential mixed methods research design. At Stage 1 (quantitative stage) we used the Psychological Characteristics of Developing Excellence Questionnaire (PCDEQ) to describe athletes' PCDEs and at Stage 2 (qualitative stage) we conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with a subset of participants with high (n=4) and low (n=4) self-directed PCDEQ scores. Reflexive thematic analysis of interviews revealed a range of dynamic and interrelated psychological characteristics facilitative (striving for success, self-regulate demands, mental skills, social skills, prosocial attitude) or debilitative (training through pain, feeling doubtful) for development, a series of dynamic and interrelated athletic (structure of talent pathway, psychosocial climate, importance of friends in sport) and non-athletic environmental features (the role of school, unconditional parental support, importance of friends outside sport) that influenced development, and, ongoing reciprocal influences of athletes' psychological characteristics and the features of their environment. We suggest that a holistic and person-centred approach is required when supporting developing athletes.