Exploring the participation pathways among high-performance varsity soccer players: is it as simple as specializing or sampling?

Research on the sport participation patterns of youth athletes often contrasts two types of participation: early sport specialization (Ford & Williams, 2017) and sampling/ diversification (Coté et al., 2009). However, the definitions of each of these categories has been imprecise and inconsistent, which may impact conclusions about the appropriateness of different types of youth sport participation (Coté et al., 2009). In particular, the notion that youth can only fall into one of two categories of sport participation may be too simple and ecologically problematic (Baker et al., 2009; Bridge & Toms, 2013). The purpose of this study was to explore different participation patterns of youth soccer players, and to understand the impact of these patterns on athletes’ current level of play. A modified version of the Developmental History of Athletes Questionnaire (Hopwood, 2013) was used to collect retrospective participation and training data from Ontario Tech University varsity soccer players.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Health Sciences (MHSc)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Kinesiology

Grantor

University of Ontario Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Mohammadi, Arman

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Wattie, Nick

• Soccer
• Expertise
• Development
• Skill acquisition
• Sport participation

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10155/1481

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ontariotechu.scholaris.ca:10155/1481