Using photo-elicitation to enrich sensemaking of football coaches’ well-being over time: a longitudinal interpretative phenomenological analysis

Well-being is multifaceted and shaped by various aspects of a person’s life across diverse contexts and dimensions over time. As such, innovative qualitative methods are needed to make sense of the temporality, context sensitivity and ecological nature of well-being. This study applied a multi-modal Longitudinal Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (LIPA) and photo-elicitation approach to explore how professional football coaches make sense of their well-being over a 10-month period. Seven male football coaches from the United Kingdom were interviewed at four timepoints across a professional football season, providing reflective photographs to support sensemaking. Two Group Experiential Themes were developed: (i) The struggle to remain whole: Balancing self, role, and relationships, and (ii) The challenges of navigating experiences, connections, and anticipations. The multi-modal LIPA approach captured the temporal, contextual, and reciprocal influences between personal, relational, and cultural systems on well-being. Visual methods facilitated rich, metaphorical insight into tacit experiences that shaped well-being management, including how coaches navigated role transitions, family dynamics, and institutional norms. The photo-elicitation approach actively opened up conversations, enhancing participants’ self-awareness and well-being management. This research advances understanding of how the dynamic and contextualised nature of well-being can be explored using multi-modal longitudinal qualitative research methods.