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- Ekengren, Johan, 1979-
(författare)
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Careers of Swedish Professional Handball Players : From an Empirical Model to Career-Long Psychological Support Services
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This PhD Project with a specialization in sport psychology is inspired by the cultural praxis of athletes’ careers paradigm. This implies that the Project blends theory, research, and practice within the context of Swedish handball, by investigating career pathways of professional players providing empirically based, and context specific, implications. The overarching aim of the Project is twofold: (a) to examine the career experiences of Swedish professional handball players and consolidate them into the empirical career model of Swedish professional handball players (ECM-H), and (b) based on the ECM-H, to develop, validate, and test an applied framework promoting career-long psychological support services in Swedish handball (CPS-H). The first aim is covered by Study I and II, and the second aim is met in Study III and IV. The dissertation is designed as a collection of four articles with one article per study. Study I focused on a qualitative exploration of career experiences from 18 Swedish professional handball players including major career stages and transitions in their athletic and non-athletic development. The players’ accounts were consolidated into the ECM-H describing the context-specific features and pathways throughout the handball career. When developing the ECM-H, gender-specific issues appeared of interest for further investigation. Gender issues were addressed in Study II by re-analyzing the data from Study I. Two composite vignettes were created describing the career pathways of nine male and nine female players. Study III initiated a move from research to practice. Based on the ECM-H, applied sport psychology literature and experiences of the research team led by the first author, the applied framework CPS-H was heuristically developed and validated in three focus groups with end users; professional players, coaches, and sport psychology practitioners. The validated version of the CPS-H is presented with general and career stage-specific recommendations for its implementation among support providers (i.e., where, when, what, who, why, and how of psychological support service). Study IV was designed as an instrumental case study for testing a part of the CPS-H framework. More specifically, the mastery career stage. A career assistance program (CAP) named Life as a professional handball player was developed for, implemented with, and evaluated by Swedish League team. The program included eight workshops dealing with various aspects of the players’ athletic and non-athletic life (e.g., performance, training, lifestyle, recovery, future planning), together with crisis-related issues (e.g., coping with uncertainty). These workshops were delivered by the first author during 12 weeks of a competitive season. The mixed-methods evaluation revealed a perceived improvement in players’ personal coping resources (e.g., increased awareness) and a decrease in their fatigue and stress. This Project contributes to the athlete career sport psychology discourse and the emerging athlete mental health discourse by presenting the ECM-H and CPS-H frameworks, and the CAP Life as a professional handball player, grounded in the cultural context of Swedish handball. The frameworks and CAP can serve as inspiration for future research and practice, informed by a cultural praxis. The Project shows the usefulness of working as a scientist-practitioner and establishing theory-researchpractice-context links for the promotion of culturally informed implications, and supports the work of facilitating a holistic understanding of athletes’ striving for healthy, successful, and long-lasting careers in sport and life.
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| 2. |
- Linnér, Lukas, 1985-
(författare)
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Dual Careers of Swedish University Student-Athletes : A Synthesis of Holistic Developmental and Ecological Approaches
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Swedish dual career (DC) system has a history of providing support at the gymnasium/upper secondary level since the early 1970s. Since 2012, there has been a call from the European Union to member states to develop a support provision throughout athletes’ DCs based on national research. In 2015, the Swedish DC system was expanded to include the university level. Completed in parallel with this development, the aim of this PhD Project has been to study the DC experiences of Swedish university student-athletes from the holistic developmental and the holistic ecological approaches, and to develop a framework for DC support at university level in Sweden. The dissertation is designed as a collection of four studies, with one article per study. In Study I (part of the Erasmus+ project Gold in Education and Elite Sport; GEES), Swedish university student-athletes’ personal resources and coping strategies, known also as DC competences, are explored in relation to challenging DC scenarios (e.g., Miss days of study). Findings for example showed a general need to develop competences to cope successfully with the DC. In Study II the move from exploring demands across student-athletes’ levels of development to integration of demands in DC scenarios, as initiated in the GEES-project, was continued. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six student-athletes with the aim to identify DC scenarios that influenced university student-athletes’ DC balance and factors involved in the coping process. Seven scenarios were identified. An updated definition of DC scenarios and their taxonomy was suggested. Study III (part of the Erasmus+ project Ecology of Dual Career) shifted the attention from the individual to the environment and explored the features of a successful DC development environment (DCDE) at a Swedish university from the holistic ecological approach. The structure and key relationships in the DCDE, for example, coach-to-student-athlete, and the factors influencing the DCDE effectiveness, for example, a DC-support team with a shared DC philosophy, were described.Study IV combined the holistic ecological and holistic developmental approaches through a mixed-methods case study to describe how a DCDE at a Scandinavian university facilitated their student-athletes’ DC transition. The findings suggested that effective DCDEs work to meet student-athletes’ needs by helping them to develop DC competences to create and maintain an optimal DC balance.This PhD Project contributes to the DC research and assistance within the athlete career sport psychology discourse and to the knowledge basis for the continued development of the Swedish DC system. Derived from Studies I-IV and related research, the DC assistance (DCA) framework is presented integrating whole person, whole career, and whole environment perspectives. The DCA framework is aimed at guiding professional DC practice towards helping student-athletes develop and maintain optimal DC balance to facilitate their striving for career excellence, and by means contribute to more sustainable DCs for student-athletes across Swedish sports universities.
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