A creative non-fiction story of an athlete’s journey through the life skills application process

ABSTRACT

To date, the majority of empirical investigations into the life skills transfer process have presented what have often been singular instances of application, thus positioning life skills transfer more as an outcome rather than an ongoing process of learning/refinement. Conceptualising transfer as an outcome overlooks the cognitive and emotional factors that influence athletes in their process of attempting to apply in life the skills they learned in sport. The purpose of the present study was to use the Kendellen and Camiré (2019) substantive grounded theory of life skills application to document one athlete’s journey through the life skills application process. A single instrumental case study was employed to investigate the athlete’s experiences of applying the life skill of leadership at work as he progressed through the four steps described in the grounded theory. Three individual semi-structured interviews were conducted over a 10-month period, supplemented by three months of solicited journaling. In drawing on the analytical practice of creative non-fiction, the athlete’s story of applying the life skill of leadership at work is presented. The present study contributes to the literature by moving beyond documenting instances of life skills transfer and instead demonstrating how the athlete’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviours evolved to influence his experiences of applying at work the leadership skills he believed he learned in sport. The findings are discussed in relation to the substantive grounded theory of life skills application as well as the life skills transfer literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Transfer
• positive youth development
• cognitive processes
• sport
• creative analytical practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) through a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship under Grant [767-2015-1524]; Sport Participation Research Initiative under Grant [862-2015-0007].

Notes on contributors

Kelsey Kendellen

Kelsey Kendellen, PhD is an instructor in the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Lethbridge (Canada). This research was completed during her doctoral studies at the School of Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa (Canada) where she specialised in the development of life skills through sport and the underlying psychological mechanisms of the life skills transfer process.

Martin Camiré

Martin Camiré, PhD is an Associate Professor in the School of Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa. Through his research, he is interested in examining how positive youth development can be facilitated in the context of sport and how coaches learn to implement strategies to promote the development and transfer of life skills.