Exploring Stakeholder Coherence in an Effective Talent Identification and Development Environment.

Abstract

The research in Talent Identification and Development (TID) in sport comprises a wide literature that is categorised into five key constructs in the second study of this thesis. The fifth construct concerns the role that the stakeholders (the sport organisation, coaches and parents) have in athlete development. However, this construct has attracted less research attention, despite its obvious and important contribution to athlete success.
The second study indicated low degrees of stakeholder understanding of all five constructs of TID and poor levels of coherence between them, (as described by their perception of each other’s views of the research constructs). Further investigation endorsed this lack of coherence, and suggested specific areas of knowledge
that would be helpful for coaches and parents in particular. There were very apparent perceptual differences between what parents wanted to know and
what coaches thought they should know. Subsequently, testing the impact of parent workshops gave a clear indication that such an intervention could increase understanding of the key issues of athlete development and lead to improvement in coach-parent relationships. The different studies were based primarily in the UK and in one sport, but cultural differences suggest that the findings of this thesis may not pertain to other sports and nations. To this end, the final study compared TID systems and coach- parent coherence in three different cultures. Very few significant differences existed either in each nation’s TID process or in coach-parent coherence, suggesting a substantial influence of sporting over national culture. The conclusion is that the many and consistent outcomes of TID research are largely ignored by sport systems. Where TID processes are put in place for junior athletes by sport systems, they appear to contribute to low levels of coherence between the stakeholders and to the lack of success, as adults, of selected junior athletes.