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ABSTRACT
The purpose of the present study was to examine parental involvement in youth athletes’ task role development through the perspectives of important youth sport stakeholders (e.g., athletes, parents, and coaches). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 participants (4 athletes, 7 parents, and 5 coaches) from four different types of competitive interdependent team sports (e.g., basketball). Analysis of the interview data occurred inductively through a conventional content analysis. Results generally demonstrated that all sets of participants perceived parents to influence athlete role development. Specific themes are organized into three overarching categories that explore parent characteristics (e.g., parental sport knowledge, investment), parent behaviors (e.g., support, intervention), and the resulting consequences of parental involvement (e.g., athlete role acceptance, team specific consequences). Discussion is focused on several theoretical implications surrounding the study of formal role development and emphasizes future research directions including the consideration of other social agents (e.g., teammates) in the role transmission process.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. For the purpose of this study the terms youth and adolescent are used consistently with previous studies to represent individuals who are between the ages of 13–17 (Eys, Loughead, Bray, & Carron, Citation2009; Fraser-Thomas & Côté, Citation2006). Between this age range, athletes understand skill discrepancies and are better able to integrate feedback from several sources (e.g., parents, coaches) than younger athletes (Fraser-Thomas & Côté, Citation2006).
2. Although it is possible that parents influence their child’s social role development, social-oriented roles are likely to develop informally (i.e., through teammate interaction; Benson et al., Citation2014; Cope, Eys, Beauchamp, Schinke, & Bosselut, Citation2011) and research regarding informal role development is still in its infancy (Kim, Gardant, Bosselut, & Eys, Citation2018). Therefore, for the purpose of this study, we focused on task role development that is, by comparison, much more established in the literature (e.g., Eys, Carron, et al., Citation2005; Kahn et al., Citation1964).
3. A copy of the interview guides can be obtained by request to the first author.
4. Throughout the results section the letters A (athlete), C (coach), and P (parent) are used to demonstrate the source of each quote.