The Psychology of Athlete Selection: Perceptions and Processes

The objectives of this dissertation were to explore the factors influencing talent wastage within sport and to illuminate areas of improvement for athlete selection practices. To accomplish these objectives the research program used both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Chapter 2 involved a narrative review of the literature to identify factors affecting selection accuracy within and beyond the sport domain. In Chapter 3, a PRISMA-based systematic review was conducted on the literature examining the accuracy of the professional sport draft system in North America. The next two chapters utilized a qualitative design, where the research question, data collection, and data analysis were all guided by a pragmatistic paradigm. More specifically, these chapters explored a group of expert distance running coaches’ subjective beliefs about ‘talent’ (Chapter 4) and talent selection practices (Chapter 5). Finally, in Chapter 6, a tool was developed, and a pilot experiment was conducted to examine the decision-making-behaviour of a group of rugby coaches. Several key findings were revealed through this program of work. Chapter 2 highlighted athlete selection is affected by a complex interaction of various factors. Such factors may include confusing or conflicting beliefs about talent, political and system-wide pressures, and cognitive biases and other decision-making fallibilities. Chapter 3 revealed inefficiencies within the North American draft systems and provided insight into some of the selection challenges at even the most resource-rich stages of the sport pathway. The qualitative analyses showed distance running coaches perceived talent to be complex, nuanced, and easily confused with other closely related terms (Chapter 4) and that coaches made selections using both formal and informal selection strategies that were influenced by their personal and systemic constraints (Chapter 5). Finally, findings presented in Chapter 6 emphasized the difficulties in designing a tool to assess decision-making and selection behaviour in the context of sport. These difficulties are believed to be connected to the individual differences in how ‘success’ is measured and how ‘talent’ is defined and assessed. In summary, findings of this research program suggest talent is a prevalent and pervasive construct that influences the way coaches think about and select athletes

The Psychology of Athlete Selection: Perceptions and Processes

The objectives of this dissertation were to explore the factors influencing talent wastage within sport and to illuminate areas of improvement for athlete selection practices. To accomplish these objectives the research program used both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Chapter 2 involved a narrative review of the literature to identify factors affecting selection accuracy within and beyond the sport domain. In Chapter 3, a PRISMA-based systematic review was conducted on the literature examining the accuracy of the professional sport draft system in North America. The next two chapters utilized a qualitative design, where the research question, data collection, and data analysis were all guided by a pragmatistic paradigm. More specifically, these chapters explored a group of expert distance running coaches subjective beliefs about talent (Chapter 4) and talent selection practices (Chapter 5). Finally, in Chapter 6, a tool was developed, and a pilot experiment was conducted to examine the decision-making-behaviour of a group of rugby coaches. Several key findings were revealed through this program of work. Chapter 2 highlighted athlete selection is affected by a complex interaction of various factors. Such factors may include confusing or conflicting beliefs about talent, political and system-wide pressures, and cognitive biases and other decision-making fallibilities. Chapter 3 revealed inefficiencies within the North American draft systems and provided insight into some of the selection challenges at even the most resource-rich stages of the sport pathway. The qualitative analyses showed distance running coaches perceived talent to be complex, nuanced, and easily confused with other closely related terms (Chapter 4) and that coaches made selections using both formal and informal selection strategies that were influenced by their personal and systemic constraints (Chapter 5). Finally, findings presented in Chapter 6 emphasized the difficulties in designing a tool to assess decision-making and selection behaviour in the context of sport. These difficulties are believed to be connected to the individual differences in how success is measured and how talent is defined and assessed. In summary, findings of this research program suggest talent is a prevalent and pervasive construct that influences the way coaches think about and select athletes