Part II of a two-step mixed-methods approach in developing the Growth Talent Mindsets for Sports Coaches Intervention 2.0: The coaches’ perceptions of delivery and possible psychological processes of change

Abstract

The current study follows up on the first-time implementation of the GrowTMindS Intervention described in Part I, with an overall aim of improving sports coaches’ beliefs in their talent as a coach (coach talent mindset, C-TM) and their athletes’ talent (athlete talent mindset, A-TM) as being malleable. By drawing on the user-centered design approach, we first refined the intervention using the insight provided by the coaches in Part I. A mixed-method approach then evaluated the second-time implementation, which included 33 participants (Mage = 38.76, SD = 16.55; 13 women, 20 men) in the quantitative strand and 11 informants (Mage = 39.09, SD = 14.10; 5 women, 6 men) in the sequential qualitative strand. The coaches represented the sports of swimming, bandy, ski sports, golf, and orienteering. The quantitative results indicate that the intervention targeted the coaches’ talent mindsets as their growth C-TM and A-TM scores increased from pre-test to post-test a year and a half after the intervention. The qualitative findings substantiate these results, showing how an increase at scale also appears meaningful concerning their belief in their own and their athletes’ developments. The findings also helped us to understand how the embracing, or possibly refuting, of intervention delivery may substantiate different trajectories of change, and thereby provided insight into the difficulty of targeting and the complexity of psychological processes and behavioral change. By considering the changes in coaches’ growth C-TM and A-TM, we assume that the GrowTMindS Intervention is ready for testing in a Phase III efficacy trial.publishedVersio