Qualitative Research

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Qualitative Research

• Rhiannon Prince
• Karen Matson
• Laura Flaman

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Article

• Qualitative Validation of a Model For Coping With
  Acute Stress in Sports
• Journal of Sport Behaviour Sept 2001, Vol. 24
  Issue 3, p223

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Authors Affiliations

• Mark Anshel, Ph.D., Orlando,FL
• LGE Performance Systems
• Information gathered from Illawarra Steelerss
  Rugby League Organization.

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Qualitative research

• In simple terms, qualitative research is social
  or behavioral science research without the
  numbers
• A form of non-experimental research
• It examines behavior in natural social, cultural
  and political contexts

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Qualitative Research Sources

• Documentation
• Archival records
• Physical artifacts
• Direct observation
• Participant observation
• Focus groups
• Case studies
• And our favorite form of research source.

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Interviews!

• A very powerful tool
• When designed correctly, an interview should
  allow full exploration of the subject at hand
• Interviews use
• Open ended questions
• Mirror questions
• Hypothetical questions
• Summary questions
• But not leading questionstheyre bad.

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The Study

• The primary purpose of this study was to see how
  the current model for coping with stress related
  to sport competition
• Structured personal interviews were conducted
  with 28 Australian Rugby League players from New
  South Wales Australia following two highly
  intense stressful events they had experienced
  during a previous match.

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The Model

• The model consists of
• 1. Perceiving a stimulus or experiencing an event
• 2. Appraising that event as stressful
• 3. Using either approach or avoidance coping
  strategies (cognitive or behavioral)
• 4. Enacting post-coping activity

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The Study

• The results, using deductive content analysis at
  each stage of the model confirmed the the use of
  harm/less, threat and challenge appraisals,
  approach and avoidance coping strategies and
  three categories of post-coping activity.
• Huh???

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Perceived Stress

• The coping process begins with the athletes
  perception of an event or detection of a stimulus
• The experience is not considered stressful until
  the athlete interprets the experience or stimulus
  as stressfula process called cognitive appraisal

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Cognitive Appraisal

• Consists of evaluating perceived stimuli and
  determining if they are stressful, with
  implications for further coping efforts
• Athletes make stressful appraisals if they
  determine that a situation was unpleasant, a
  stimulus or event has threatened their well being
  or is taxing on his or hers personal resources
• Athletes can perceive stressful events as
  harmful, threatening or challenging

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Harm/ Loss Appraisal

• Reflects the amount of stress or damage that has
  already occurred
• Examples
• Being injured
• Feeling pain
• Success of an opponent
• Being reprimanded

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Threat Appraisal

• Consist of expectations for future harm
• Occur when an athlete senses threat or danger in
  which they are worried about how the situation
  would turn out
• Can be irrational and based on athletes thoughts
  of worst case scenarios, or a reflection of low
  confidence
• What if my opponent scores?

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Challenge Appraisals

• Reflect the view that the person will benefit
  from overcoming the stressful experience
• An important component is the anticipation or
  prediction that unpleasant events are inherent in
  sport an must be overcome in order to achieve a
  desirable outcome.
• Form a mindset that reflects confidence in ones
  skills to analyze and handle the situation

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Coping

• Typically defined as the persons conscious
  attempt to reduce or manage the demands of a
  stressful situation, or expanding the persons
  resources to deal with it
• A conscious process in sport
• Soangry outbursts, profanity, not attending to
  stimuli (opponents comments etc) and other
  impulsive, unplanned reactions to stress are not
  considered coping

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Approach Coping

• Reflect the intensified intake and processing of
  unpleasant information
• The main objectives are to improve ones
  understanding or control the situation, or to
  improve ones personal resources in dealing with
  it
• This can occur through thoughts
  (approach-cognitive coping) such as planning or
  analyzing
• Can also occur by actions (approach-behavioral
  coping) such as asking for info or confrontation

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Avoidance Coping

• Reflects the conscious attempt at physically or
  mentally turning away from the stressful source
• This allows the competitor to maintain
  attentional focus on the next task at hand
• Two kinds Avoidance-cognitive and
  avoidance-behavioral coping strategies

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Avoidance-Cognitive

• Psychological distancing
• Discounting
• Self-depreciating humor
• Reinterpreting the stressor
• Rationalization
• These are particularity useful when dealing with
  a difficult person (i.e. the ref)

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Avoidance-Behavioral

• Actions that physically remove the athlete from
  the stress source
• Engaging in exercise
• Social engineering (avoiding a person or
  situation)
• Quickly moving on to the next task
• Maladaptive strategies include drug or alcohol
  abuse and overeating

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Post Coping Activity

• Remaining on task
• Reappraising the situation
• Examining the effectiveness of the coping
  strategy
• Disengaging from further sport participation
  (going off task either physically or mentally)

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Post Coping Activity

• Coping does not assume effectiveness in reducing
  perceived stress
• Coping should not be confuse with outcome
• The athlete may use coping strategies that are
  ineffective, inefficient or inappropriate
  (maladaptive)

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Main Findings

• Data was analyzed using deductive content
  analysis (DCA)
• DCA consists of assigning the athletes
  statements into predetermined categories,
  dimensions and interrelationships based on
  theoretical or conceptual grounds

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Main Findings

• First step in analysis determine acute sources
  of stress
• Primary sources of acute stress
• - making a physical error (32)
• - a cheating opponent/physical
• abuse (21)
• Least stressful situation was receiving negative
  feedback from the coach (3)

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Main Findings
Six Categories of Acute Stress (Stressors)
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Main Findings
Second Step Content Analysis of Stress Appraisals

• - Extensive use of threat appraisals (48)
• E.g. Concern that the other team may be better
• - Harm/Loss appraisals (34)
• E.g. Fear of injury after experiencing hard
  contact of pain
• - Challenge appraisals (18)
• E.g. Wanting to make others proud
• Data suggests that the athletes responded to
  stressful situations with heightened anxiety

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Main Findings
Third Step Content Analysis of Coping Strategies

• Used to determine the extent to which athletes
  used various coping strategies
• - Selected Approach-Cognitive Coping Strategies
  (37)
• E.g. I kept on thinking about the stressor
  OR I tried to analyze what went wrong
• - Selected Approach-Behavioral Coping
  Strategies (18)
• E.g. I played harder OR I spoke to my
  teammates about it
• - Selected Avoidance-Cognitive Coping
  Strategies (12)
• E.g. The coach is always that way OR I
  thought the other team had a lucky break
• - Selected Avoidance-Behavioral Coping
  Strategies(14)
• E.g. I just kept on going on task OR I
  walked away from my opponent

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Main Findings
Fourth Step Content Analysis of Post-Coping
Activity

• Asking the athletes to report on their thoughts
  and actions after they implemented the coping
  strategy
• - Did not cope/went off task (18)
• E.g. I wanted to quit the team
• - Remained on task (55)
• E.g. I pretended that nothing happened
• - Assessed coping efficiency/effectiveness
  (16)
• E.g. I just felt better
• - Cognitive Reappraisal (28)
• E.g. Its still early in the match

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Main Findings

• Coping is a conscious rather than an automatic
  process
• Stages of coping, as depicted by these athletes,
  lends credence to the ability to identify a
  framework for further study of coping in sport
• The qualitative procedures used in this study
  supports contention that structured personal
  interviews and deductive content analyses form an
  effective approach to identifying a process or
  series of thoughts and actions that occur in
  field settings

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Main Findings

• Has direct implications for assisting athletes to
  improve their coping skills prior to and during
  the game
• Threat appraisals can also be advantageous for
  alerting athletes about potential problems and
  improving vigilance in either preventing the
  problem or quickly dealing with it
• Identifying athletes coping styles (usual
  pattern of coping depicted as approach and
  avoidance) improves the predictability of an
  athletes use of particular coping strategies

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Critique
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Threats to External Validity

• Reactive Arrangements
• The athletes know about the study, what is
  expected, may affect answers they give
• Experimenter Effects
• Answers given may be effected by the presence
  of the interviewer and his grad students

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Threats to Internal Validity

• Maturation Effect
• The study lasted for over 2 years, natural
  development may have occurred in an athletes
  coping strategies
• History
• Changes may have occurred during study due to
  an athletes outside influences

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Weaknesses of the study

• Social Desirability Outcomes
• Self Report methods
• Interviewer Bias
• Lack of Generalizability

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Social Desirability

• Athletes wanted to provide what they think is the
  proper response
• Didnt want to get in trouble from their coaches
  or other team personnel for answering a certain
  way
• Didnt want to give the interviewer the wrong
  response

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Self Report Methods

• Purely based on perceptions
• Subjected to personal biases
• May give misinterpretations when trying to
  remember specific events

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Interviewer Bias

• Same team psychologist for over two years
• Interviewers questions may have been leading in
  order to guide the athlete to a desired response
• Predetermined categories for the answers may lead
  to biases while assigning the answers to the
  different categories

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Lack of Generalizability

• Information taken from one team in the Australian
  Rugby League
• Small sample size (n28)
• No random assignment
• Cultural and situational factors may have
  influenced responses

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Future Research Suggestions
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Make the study more generalizable

• Include players from different teams within the
  league
• Larger sample size
• Random assignment of teams involved
• Account for situational and cultural factors that
  may affect results

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Control for biases

• Different formatting for gathering data
• Different methods for reporting ideas and stress
  responses

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Why Use Qualitative Research?

• Information needed as a starting point to a topic
  that is fairly unknown or under researched
• E.g. Acute stress within rugby or professional
  sports
• Information gathered from many different factors
  natural, social and cultural
• E.g. How rugby players from different leagues
  and teams react to similar stressful events

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Why Use Qualitative Research? ...Continued

• In-depth ideas of why a person thinks a certain
  way
• E.g. Interviews with a player to determine why
  they responded the way they did
• Gather a lot of information on a limited area
• E.g. Case study of 1 rugby team

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THE END