Learning to become an elite athlete is a long and complex journey. The process of developing a complete understanding of athlete learning may prove even longer and more intricate still. Researchers in motor learning have investigated how athletes learn through a variety of methods; however, there is an absence of qualitative studies on this topic, and studies that examine the actual learning processes of athletes. The purpose of the present study was therefore to better understand how elite women volleyball athletes have learned throughout their athletic life from the perspective of the athletes themselves. Ten high performance varsity and ex-varsity women volleyball athletes with national and international experience were interviewed. The research findings indicate that the athletes' ways of learning were influenced by their biographies, by a variety of learning situations that they experienced with both their coaches and their teammates, and by their use of personal reflection. The findings of this study suggest that an athlete's internal drive and desire to be the best, their ability to view all forms of disjuncture as opportunities to learn, and their willingness to seek out and accept feedback and coaching as important components in the complex process of learning. The findings also point to the need for the sport learning environment to continue to develop coaches with effective teaching and interpersonal skills as well as solid technical skills in their respective sports.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/28936 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Woods, Lionel |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 75 p. |
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